


The Green Eye and The Man Who Is Everyone

by AngelWingsandBrokenThings



Category: Jacksepticeye (YouTuber RPF), Markiplier (Youtuber RPF), Septiplier - Fandom
Genre: AU, Eventual Smut, Fighting, M/M, Superpowers AU, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 28,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6201967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelWingsandBrokenThings/pseuds/AngelWingsandBrokenThings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has known since he was ten that he had some ability. There were people in the world who had these powers, these people were often moved into facilities to protect others but also themselves and to train them. Jack runs to America only to run into recruiters that happen to have a very attractive bargaining chip on their side who never seems to be able to choose a form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Time Out

At ten Jack figured out that he made a mistake somewhere between falling off the roof and launching himself towards the pool. Falling wasn’t accurate, he actually jumped off the roof but in his final statement to his mother afterward he had fallen while telling his brothers not to jump.

Another part he left out was what happened mid crash dive into the pool. 

Somewhere in his panic everything froze, not like a panic attack or an adrenalin rush, everything froze except his thoughts. As soon as he realized wind wasn’t whipping through his outstretched limbs he opened his eyes only to see water about a foot from his face.

 

“What the…? Mom…?” He called, his voice sounding slow and odd. Then his wonder slowly ebbed back into panic as he realized he was stuck above a pool in the middle of America. This dissolving in panicked cries and the flailing of limbs and then  _ SPLASH _ .

Water knocked the wind out of him as he belly flopped into the pool at full speed. As he scrambled up to the water he called for his mom who was sitting near the door back into the hotel.

“Mom! I- I-”

“Sean! Don’t you dare try stunts like that again! You could’ve gotten hurt!”

“I know mom but-” Jack was cut off mid-protest and was sent back into the hotel. As the child wandered back to his family’s room he had time to contemplate these recent events.  He had heard about people who had magic abilities, he had heard about them disappearing too. This causing him to come to the conclusion of keeping these abilities to himself.

At seventeen, Jack decided to run for it. Not that his parents were going to turn him in or what not, they didn’t even know he had powers. But the constant stress on him made the likelihood of him accidentally revealing his powers even more likely. They didn’t need that strain.

So Jack set off with a duffel bag towards the airport. Working his hardest to hold his powers back, these days it was less concrete as just stopping time, so it was rough trying to keep it under control so no one would notice.

He shoved his hands in his pockets to walk out further away from his house so he could call a taxi. Not wanting his family to notice he had left. He gathered his remaining Euros and slid into the taxi that had rolled up. 

"Airport please," Jack sighed. He spent the drive trying to think of where he's going to go once he ends up in America, he's only been once but it seems far enough away to suffice his need for distance. When he got to the airport he thanked the driver and paid the fare. He now had a lot less money to work with once he got there but it'd have to do. He wandered through 'til he found the right airline desk and weighed his bags. This was going to be a long flight.

He slid through security easily and made his way to the gate, it was technically not too late to turn around now but Jack had already made up his mind. He waited patiently for his seating group to be called and got on the plane.

This was going to be a long flight.


	2. Flashlight Tag

Jack left the terminal in America with a feeling of pride and hope. This feeling dissipated within an hour and was even further trampled after about a week. Euros were almost useless in America, he kept trying to go into banks to exchange them but he kept getting turned away for not having a bank account.

He also fell into the problem that in America he was a minor. He was still a minor in Ireland but he was still able to do more somehow. He only had a day or two til his birthday now anyways, he was almost eighteen. 

He wasn’t sure of the date anymore, his days broken up into wandering around in search of work or shelter, then settling down in a sheltered corner for the night. His jacket was wearing thin and his gloves were quickly being shredded down to threads. It was only a matter of time before he was faced with the full brunt of winter with almost no insulation.

He was trying to huddle closer into the corner when he heard cheerful voices nearing his hiding spot. This wouldn’t be concerning if it wasn’t in the early hours of the morn. Jack slid out to look around the corner to see three guys wandering down the street. 

They were laughing and carrying on as one of them frantically swiped at their face.

“BOB YOU TOOK MY NOSE” An outraged voice shrieked. “IT’S GONE”

Jack looked out and scarily enough the guy was, in fact, missing his nose. This in and of itself was terrifying, let alone the fact that the other guy accompanying them seemed to be glowing.

“Mark put your nose back and keep an eye out for someone, I swear I can feel power around here” The taller one swiped for the guy who’s nose randomly appeared back on his face. The glowing dude just laughed and outstretched his hand, casting a light around the nearby buildings. 

Jack crept back as light shined towards his hiding spot. 

“Hey, wait did you guys see that?” One of them asked. 

“Something moved… Mark go check it out.”

Jack heard a sigh and he panicked, he couldn’t get found now, not after all he went through to get here. He shuffled back as far as he could and huddled in his corner. He didn’t even breathe, heart racing as he watched the corner waiting for someone to walk around it.

As he sat there frozen suddenly something rubbed against his leg. Jack’s heart stopped as he whipped his head to his right looking around for the government worker he was sure was going to be there. 

Instead of a gun-wielding government crony there was a short golden retriever nuzzling him with that sort of dog smile. Jack was both terrified and relieved.

“Shh they can’t find me” Jack whispered to the dog patting its head. The dog quirked its head in a questioning manner and then shook itself. 

Then all hell broke loose.

The dog barked and /jack whipped around to look at the little traitor.

“You little bastard” Jack growled as footsteps sounded against the pavement. He jumped up ready to make his last stand as a free man.  He put his hands up in defense as the two guys rounded the corner.

“Woah woah chill out there” The glowing one put his hands up. After some coercion from him, the other guy slowly held his hands up.

“Do you… Do you know what you are?” He asked carefully.

Jack just glared refusing to answer. The still glowing guy reached a hand out and Jack panicked. He shoved his hands out and there was a flash of green light. The two guys and the dog were frozen as he ran for it.

  
He couldn’t be found, not to either be arrested, or deported back to Ireland.


	3. You're Such a Cheetah

As Jack dashed through the streets he hoped his powers eventually allowed those guys to move again. Even though he was terrified he didn’t want to go into statue making. Carving? Whichever. As he ran he slammed full body into another person.

“Oh shit, sorry! I wasn’t looking-” Jack froze as he struggled to stand up. He looked up to see a man standing over him.

“No problem.” He smiled warmly. The taller man offered a hand to Jack who was still on the ground somehow even after all his efforts.

“Thanks” Jack mumbled sheepishly.

The other guy reached his hand out. “I’m Mark, you?”

“Jack.” He shook Mark’s hand firmly, with a bashful smile. He stood there awkwardly for a second

“So.. You want to go get coffee?” Mark pointed behind him to the coffee shop they had collided in front of.

Jack’s heart stopped, of course he wanted to. One problem, he had pretty much no money at this point, certainly none he’d want to spend on just coffee. He needed to save that so he could eat.

“I don’t... I can’t.” Jack stuttered out. A flash of sympathy flashed in Mark’s eyes.

“You’ve got things to do?” His shoulders slumped a bit with a sad expression.

“No no- I just- I can’t really afford that right now. Just gotta save up y'know” Jack mumbled. He wasn’t keen on admitting he was a pretty much hobo right now. Especially to this extremely attractive guy.

Mark nodded a bit seeming to understand.

“That’s fine I can pay for it, man.” He waved off Jack’s promises to pay him back and led him into the warm shop. People bustled around with cups of coffee a delicate looking pastries. There were a few open tables to the sides and a couple bean bag chairs tossed in corners. Overall, the place had that warm welcoming vibe you only get from the friendliest cafes. Jack knew he couldn’t afford the warmth that settled into his bones, no matter how nice Mark was.

“What do you want?” Mark asked. Jack mumbled off some sort of drink that was on the cheaper side of the menu. Mark nodded and strode off to go order, leaving Jack at a nearby table.

While he was left alone he fidgeted with his hands, what was he doing here? He went from running away from a bunch of guys to running into a hot dude and getting coffee with him. How was he going to manage this? It’s not like he could go on pretending he was totally normal when he could barely control his powers. That’s why he ended up in this mess in the first place.

“I’m not convinced they got our order right but the girl seemed new so I’m not gonna say anything”

Jack jerked out of his thoughts as Mark set down the coffees on the table.

“So if you don’t mind me asking, why were you running?” Mark asked with a small smile. Jack rummaged through his brain for some story that might sound truthful.

“I was… being mugged?” Jack squeaked out.

“Are you not sure?” Mark raised an eyebrow. “What did the guys look like?”

“I think there were three of them. I couldn’t get a good look at them, but there were two taller guys and they seemed to have maybe brown hair? The other was shorter but I think he was a red head…” Jack trailed off in thought. Then he looked back up at Mark. “Wait a second how did you know it was a group of guys?”

Jack froze as he remembered one of the guys talking as they had wandered by.

“ _ Something moved… Mark go check it out _ .”

_ Mark _ .

“You!” Jack jumped/fell out of his chair and scrambled back towards the door, causing people to stare at them. Jack watched in horror as Mark’s face shifted back to the guy from the dark street.

“You’re a shapeshifter!”

“Duh?” Mark lifted an eyebrow as he watched Jack continue to scramble back to the door before full on turning tail and fleeing.

Jack once again was running into the cold night air, he tugged his jacket closer to himself trying to retain the little bit of heat he had. Before he could go too far down the road a large weight hit his back sending him sprawling onto the road, tearing his jacket and pants up further. Jack frantically looked around only to lay his eyes on a cheetah languidly stretching and then forming a different guy.

“...Mark?” Jack whispered in fear. Mark walked over and with delicate hands, helped him up.

“You need to stop running kid”

“Why the fuck would I?!” Jack growled, down being relatively quiet in this. “You’re going to drag me off to some scary ass building in butt fuck nowhere to be experimented on! OR! You’re going to ship my sorry ass  back to Ireland!” Jack yelled angrily waving his arms about.

“I… I don’t think so?” Mark looked very confused. “We were just trying to help you-”

“You followed me through the city and then chased me!”

“You ran!”

Jack stopped, this was true.

“How were you plannin’ to help me then?” Jack sighed. At this point there didn’t seem to be much point in fighting a ton, he wasn’t going to last long on the streets anyways.

“We have a training facility, and you can live in the dorms, like us!” Mark smiled a bit then.

“Where is this?” Jack asked looking around as if keeping an eye out for flashlight guy and whoever the fuck the other guy was.

“A couple of blocks over, you want me to show you?”

The shreds of Jack’s resolve crumbled.

“Fine” Jack followed Mark as he began to lead him back down the road.


	4. He's the bro-tagonist

Jack started thinking he was going to regret following Mark as he walked up to what looked like a boarding school campus. Complete with a school flag, impressive looking stone work, and tall wooden doors. 

“The fuck kind of x-men shit…” Jack mumbled to himself. Mark through a smile over his shoulder as he skipped up to the building.

“If you choose to join our lovely assortment of friends, you’ll be sorted by skill level and ability type into a group. From there you’ll be trained to control and harness your powers for the greater good and all that jazz.” Mark explained as they wandered the halls.

They passed by a trophy case full of random objects and Jack swears he saw a human head in there. As they go deeper into the building they lapse into silence, only the squeaking of their shoes filling the air. That’s when Jack noticed no one was here and suddenly became concerned that Mark was going to kill him. Also where were the two guys he was with?

“So...Where is everyone else then?” Jack asked glancing around nervously.

“Oh we don’t use this building really, it’s just a very long entrance for the office. We can’t go in the easy way until you’re registered.” Mark explained, gesturing down the hall. “Speaking of which, you wouldn’t happen to have a driver’s license or such would you?”

Jack faltered.

“Do I need… Documents?” He started wringing his hands, there's no way they’re going to let him join now. This is how he gets sent back to Ireland.

“Um… I’m going to assume you’re not in possession of your birth certificate” Mark said looking at him with mild concern. “I mean we are government funded and ran so we need to have you registered somehow”

“The.. The United States Government..?” Jack’s eyes grew bigger as he realized this wasn’t going to work out. Mark stopped walking to stare at him.

“Yes? Hold on, are you not American? Fuck you’re fucking Irish aren’t you? How the fuck did you end up here?” Mark started mumbling to himself not giving Jack a chance to reply. He started walking faster down the hall making Jack jog to keep up.

Mark slid into a side room not even bothering to hold the door open for Jack. He hastily ripped open a hatch in floor and started climbing down.

“When you said we needed to go through a reception desk I imagined it above ground” Jack called down to Mark as he looked down the endless looking hole. As he looked down he started to feel a little whoozy.

“Mark isn’t there an elevator or something…”

“No we’ve gotta go to my supervisor now Mr.Illegal Immigrant” Mark growled.

“Why are you so upset?” Jack questioned confused, Mark was perfectly fine a minute ago. Mark glared up at him.

“Just hurry up! We’ve got shit to do.” With a huff he moved down the ladder quicker in silence. Jack sighed as he followed him, he had already managed to fuck up his only sort of friendship in America. 

At the end of the ladder it lead into a dark room with gray walls with doorways in every side leading into more gray hallways with clinical looking lighting. Jack would’ve made a comment on how not-fun this was looking but he doubted it would be received well so he kept his mouth shut for the time being.

Mark walked down one of the halls quickly making several turns to the point Jack stopped trying to keep track in case of needing to escape. They rarely passed anyone and when they did it was people in suits and for some reason most of them carried clipboards.

When they stopped finally it was in front of another tall intimidating door this one with a name plaque that read “ _ Agent Toast _ ”.

Jack tried not to laugh at it, there was joke in there somewhere about the agent being toast but given Mark’s now nervous behavior he kept his jokes to himself as he watched Mark anxiously knock on the door, hands shaking a tad.

“Come in” A voice called.

Mark took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He turned the door handle  and opened it, stepping into the warm room. Jack quietly followed him like a shadow, he really wasn’t this quiet normally.

“Hello sir” Mark greeted in an even voice, all the nerves he seemed to have had a second ago melted into a steeled expression. 

“What are you doing here Mark.” The man stood up from his desk and spoke with an accent. “Who’s that” He jabbed a finger towards Jack.

Jack wasn’t sure what to do in this situation so he just froze and hoped Mark would make the bearded man happy, or in the very least a sort of more positive neutral. The man was sizing him up as Mark spoke.

“This is Jack, found him on the street. Was hoping to give him a place to stay sir.” 

The man glanced at Mark who stepped away from Jack allowing him to step closer and hold out a hand.

“I’m Agent Toast, nice to meet you Jack.” Agent Toast turned back to Mark, “So why is my supervisory skills needed for a newcomer Mark?” He said in a deceptively light manner. 

“He’s not here legally”

Agent Toast turned towards Jack with a dull look. “You snuck in the country… From Ireland?”

“Uh… Yes?” Jack darted his eyes around as he nervously picked at his already shredded jacket. “Sorry?” Jack was definitely regretting coming here now, at least the cold pavement didn’t stare at him intensely while questioning him about hanging around in the country.

Ken let out a large breath and rubbed his temples. “ _ Why? _ ”

“I-I’m not really sure? I just didn’t want to burden my family yknow? They don’t deserve that, they don’t even know I’m- That I have- and I was scared that they were going to catch me and-”

“Who? Were you being chased?” Agent Toast had gone to lean against his desk with crossed arms.

“Well no but…” Now that Jack looks back on it he really didn’t think this whole thing through. HE started wringing his hands backing towards the door.

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have come here I-” Jack tripped on the door frame and landed on the floor as tears started to roll down his face. The weight of the last few days crushing him.

He had run away from his loving family and home to come to a country he knew nothing about only in the hopes of hiding his powers from his parents that probably would’ve loved him anyways and in the process most likely making them upset because he was gone. Jack fucked up and now he has no money to go back and he wandered into this government facility that’s probably going to fucking detain him or some shit because he’s a stupid teenager who ran the fuck away.

When he looked up through his bleary eyes he could see Mark looking at him wearily and Agent Toast’s face had softened.

“Jack..?” Mark whispered.

“Mark, take him upstairs to the dorms he can stay with Kjellberg” Agent Toast declared as he walked back around his desk.

“But sir?”

“That’s an order Fischbach” He barked back. “I’ll work it out. For now get him some rest”

Mark nodded and helped the tear stained boy off the floor leading him through more hallways, down two flights of stairs and eventually through happier looking green hallways with doors lining the way. They stopped in front of 107 before Mark knocked gently. A ruffled looking blonde guy opened the door.

“Are you… Mark? I’m never sure.” The dude squinted at Mark for a second before his eyes stopped on Jack.

“Oh shit do I get a roommate!”

Mark smiled a bit before answering, “Yeah, this is Jack. Jack, Felix” He motioned towards the excited blonde.

“I’ll see you around Jack.” Mark waved as he walked off.

“Dude we can be bros!” Felix exclaimed, dragging him into the room. Maybe this would work out after all.


	5. Penny For Your Fortune?

After Felix dragged him into the room and shoved him on the bed he started babbling about anything in everything. After days in solitude it was oddly comforting. After a while the conversation turned to talking about Mark.

“No one knows what the dude looks like” Felix explained. “He always shifts what he looks like so and I’ve heard he shifts back in his sleep but he has a dorm room to himself”

“Weird,” Jack said with wide eyes. Mark was a mysterious motherfucker.

“Yep, so if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your ability?” Felix asked, tilting his head.

“I think I can control time? Sorta…” Jack answered. “I really haven’t had much time to practice with it so I’m not sure how much I can  do.” 

Felix nodded, understanding. 

“So.. What is it you do then?” Jack inquired. Jack watched in concern as the smile on Felix’s face grew.

“Alright stand back” Felix got off the bed they were lounging on and spread his arms wide with his eyes closed.

Jack watched as nothing happened.

“Uh... Cool?”

“Shush” Felix stopped him. “You dance with the red on sky”

Jack stared at him. “What the fuck does that mean”

Felix opened his eyes, “How the fuck should I know? I just get told words. I’m a fortune teller asshole.”

“So, it sounds like I’m going to be dancing with blood...on the sky?” Jack was concerned, to say the least.

“Maybe” He gave Jack grin. “But uh, it’s lights out so... Goodnight bro!” He walked to his bed and got under the blankets leaving Jack sitting on the bed he guessed was his now.

Laying down, he looked up at the ceiling lost in thought. At least he had a bed now, that was nice. He needed a new jacket though… Jack wondered if they were going to kick him out tomorrow. It was a possibility he had to consider.

He rolled over and fell slowly into a dreamless sleep, hopefully, they didn’t make him leave.

 


	6. Water Polo?

Jack woke up to Felix shaking him.

“Jack! Wake up!” 

Jack opened his eyes and gently pulled Felix off of him. He nudged him out of his way and dragged himself to the door. When he looked out there was one of the guys Mark was with last night. 

“Hi Jack” The guy smiled at him. “I’m Bob”

“Uh hi?” Jack tilted his head not sure why Bob was here.

“I was assigned to show you around,” He said with a smile. He seemed pretty nice.

“Oh okay, cool.” Jack nodded and stepped out of the room as Bob led him down the hall.

As they walked, they ended up in a large cafeteria with a line of people waiting to get food and rows and rows of tables of people chattering happily. It was an impressively diverse group, there was a group that flew up to a table suspended from the high ceiling above them. There was a small pool to the left with a group of people splashing and creating a massive column of water that changed shapes. On the walls instead of just a bland white, there were screens that showed pictures of various skylines and would change occasionally. 

Bob slowly guided him to the line of people until he was standing in front of a coffee machine. Jack’s eyes lit up.

He grabbed a styrofoam cup out of the dispenser next to the machine and brewed a cup. He smiled to himself as it filled the cup, this place was great.

“Fan of coffee huh?” Bob smiled.

“Little bit” Jack replied sheepishly. Bob got his own cup before he led Jack out of the cafeteria down a flight of stairs to a new area with tennis and volleyball courts, a group to his left seemed to be playing water polo in a pool.

“Why is there so many pools?” Jack muttered to himself.

“We have a lot of people who have water powers and also, why not?” 

Jack couldn’t argue that logic.

“This is the recreational area we have various sports depending on the dates, you can check out the schedule that’s projected on the wall over there.” He gestured towards the wall that did indeed have a schedule projected onto it, apparently tomorrow was foosball day. “You can request new activities at the reception desk.”

“So... Is this a training facility or a resort?” Jack inquired looking around. Everyone looked pretty happy and the place looked like it was made to be comfortable.

“A little bit of both actually, this place is tailored to be pretty calm. When you have a giant group of people who are all powerful it’s a good idea to invest in keeping them happy”

Jack guessed that made sense as they went into a new area. This one had a large sliding door with a keyboard and monitor embedded into the wall next to it.

“This leads into the training areas. You type your level’s key into it and it’ll let you into the area you need.” Bob explained.

“Levels?”

“They have us all divided into categories based on type of power and what we need to have to train, this allowing for efficiency in getting you what you need and so you can learn from others with similar powers.”

“Makes sense I guess” Jack was impressed by this place. 

“This is the last stop on the tour, by the way, there are other places like the infirmary but we’re not allowed to take people down there if they’re not ill or injured and Agent Toast wanted me to make this quick so he could talk to you.”

“He wanted to talk to me? About what?”Jack was suddenly terrified.

“Probably about your enrollment” Bob shrugged

“Okay, so are we going back to his office?” 

Bob smiled and shook his head, “Nah, he said to meet up in the courtyard.”

“The courtyard?” Jack asked, how did an underground facility have a courtyard? Were they going back up to the surface?

“We have an artificial yard of sorts. Currently, it's under renovation so it should be empty.”

“Awesome.” Jack gritted his teeth, they were going to kill him right? Give him a tour and then kill him so the secrets won’t get out. Funny, a second ago he was hoping they wouldn’t kick him out.

Bob led him through more brightly colored always that contrasted yesterday’s grey ones and out into a well lit grassy area.

There Agent Toast was sitting on a bench, somehow, still in a grim manner.

“Hello Jack.” He greeted casually enough.

“Uh hi?” Jack awkwardly replied, standing in front of him now left alone as Bob had already retreated.

“I asked you here to ask you if you would like to enroll in our program,” Agent Toast said sternly.

“Wait-” Now Jack was confused, they were just going to ask him? “You mean I don’t have to?”

Agent Toast looked confused, “Of course not, if you decline we’ll get you back to your family and you can tell your family that it was just a mistake that your emotional little teenage mind made and can go on living as a normal boy. However” Agent Toast continued seeing Jack acting as if he was going to interrupt, “You didn’t just run from Ireland all the way to America because you were scared of some faceless organization taking you away. You ran because you are losing control of your powers, a control we can teach you.” 

Agent Toast looked at him with an expression of pure business, that also asked him the silent question.

_ Are You going to join? _

“But I don’t have papers and my parents aren’t here to sign-”

“You leave the paperwork to me, and under the international powers protection act, section five, you have the right to attend a training institute without the consent of your parents. Which if you want me to fill out paperwork I’m going to need your real name.”

“Sean McLoughlin” Jack stated, “Wait how did you know Jack was-”

“You’re not the only one with powers boy. So I need a clear yes or no, Sean” Agent Toast stared him down.

“Alright, yes, I want to join."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually getting oral surgery done tomorrow so I'm probably not going to post updates for awhile so that's why I'm pushing these all out now, wish me luck!


	7. An Or-kestrel Style Symphony

After he agreed to join the organization he was swept back to his room by Bob who had decided they were friends now. Bob left with a wave and so Jack was now alone in the room he shared with Felix, he didn’t really know what to do. He assumed he wasn’t allowed to use any of the facilities til he was enrolled so he curled up on his bed and tried to nap.

He fucking missed his family, he should’ve left a note or something.

He was absolutely bored. He needed new clothes, his reeked right now and if his pants were anymore his dick would just be hanging out. Taking the jeans with aesthetic holes had been a bad idea.

Jack glanced at the clock, it was around lunch now, so maybe he could go out wandering. Surely most people were in the cafeteria, and he could just slip by it unnoticed. As he walked around he watched in fascination, when he lived with his family it only seemed it was him.

A guy walked out and headed in the direction Jack was pretty sure was towards the training areas. Interested, Jack followed him, ducking under a stray limb that was being gestured around by a person with six arms.

The man approached the keypad and typed in his password, he quickly slid into the hallway that appeared, Jack not having a password scurried to follow him, sliding through the doors as they went close. He tip toed behind the guy, curious to what his powers were as he went into a large room that had grey static-y looking walls. Jack realized as he wandered into the room, he had no place to hide. He looked around frantically sliding along the wall towards the exit that was being guarded by the clueless dude.

The guy turned around and Jack froze, he was panicking like a deer in headlights.

“Jack?” He called out angrily. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just… bored?” Jack admitted looking at his feet.

“Felix’s in training in right now isn’t he..” Mark said more to himself. “Alright, this is probably against the rules but, you wanna help me train?”

Jack jerked his head up to look at Mark who was sporting blonde and green hair today, with a narrow face. 

“That’d-that’d be cool.” 

Jack felt like a lost puppy as he sat down not to far from Mark as he started stretching, getting loose and such.

“So, you get the jist of my abilities right?” Mark smiled lightly at the Irish boy who was jittering to his left, facing him. Jack shrugged his shoulders and continued staring intently.

“Alright so, I am in the simplest of terms, a shapeshifter. However there’s more to it than just that, I can only change into things that have a heart. But, I can also manipulate the appearance of others. Haven’t been able to actually like, change them completely, but I can put Bob’s face on yours.”

Jack grimaced at the imagery before laughing. “That sounds so fucking cool man.”

As he watch Mark stretched his arms up, stretching to a sort of terrifying badly don cosplay of slenderman. Then he filled out and became his friend Bob. Jack cheered and clapped as Mark quickly morphed into Felix, and  the other guy in their group, flashlight guy.

As Mark changed to yet another unrecognizable man he settled on the floor across from Jack.

“So know that you’ve seen mine, how about you?”

Jack worked really hard to keep the dick joke in then.

“I can’t really… I haven’t exactly been able to practice with them? The only time they really get used is when I accidentally lash out…”

“So you have the ability to stop people? Like to control them?” Mark offered.

“I think it’s more about time? I’m not sure though”

“Well, we could try now?” Mark gave a lopsided grin, “These rooms are built to withstand virtually anything and we have medics on call. That way if I get stuck as a statue again we’re prepared to fix it.”

Jack was almost shocked by how friendly Mark was being, except for their time at the cafe Mark had been giving him the cold shoulder. 

“First order of business, how do you trigger your green flash of light thing, second order of business, how do you get rid of the effects?” Mark threw out questions as he started to stand up.

“With our types of power we have different buttons to push you see, Bob has some sort of like sonar shit going on, which somehow relates to his nose? Felix just has to meditate a fucking ton, and I, well, I have a slightly more focused thing involving like, meditation and focusing my body parts to morph in a certain way. It’s really gross.”

“I think… I think I’ve got to focus on air particles?” 

Mark tilted his head.

“Like, I focus on holding the atoms in place? Or I guess slowing them down.” Jack explained. “And it depends, sometimes I accidentally leave it. It’s weird, it’s easier to just freeze things and hold them there so I accidentally forget to let things go sometimes. But then with moving things I have to focus on letting it go at a certain speed.”

“So the green light is..?”

“I’m really not sure dude.” Jack shook his head. Mark shrugged.

“It’s cool, it took me a really long time to figure out my powers. For a long time I thought I could only turn into people.”

“What can you turn into then?” Jack was curious, Mark seemed to have a much better grasp on his powers, who knows how long he’s been here/

“I’ve narrowed it down to anything with a heart? So like, Jellyfish and sponges are out of the question, and y’know any furniture.”

“So you were the dog?” Jack asked, he had thought so but he wasn’t sure. Before his eyes the man melted down into the very same dog. He appeared to be smiling as he trotted around. Before melting back into a human.

“Does it hurt?” Jack wondered, it’s strange to watch someone morph into various things.

“It sort of did at first. I’m not sure if that was because it was because I was bad at it or if I’ve just gotten used to the pain.” Mark was rolling through faces and bodies now, changing heights, weights, face shapes, etc. Before the blur of people smirked and suddenly he shifted and it was Jack looking at Jack.

“Holy shit” Jack stared with wide eyes at himself. “That’s weird!”

He watched in amazement as Mark-Jack pranced about. Then Mark stopped and changed back to the person he was walking around as earlier.

“What do you look like normally?” Jack asked curiously, he recalled Felix talking about Mark not showing anyone his actual face. Mark’s face steeled as his shoulders tensed.

“Enough about me, we should work on your powers.” Jack wasn’t going to push, he knew this guy for two days, it wasn’t his business.

“So what do you want me to do?” Jack inquired hands out stretched as if casting some sort of spell. 

“Alright, I’m going to become a bird, fly up, then drop. You stop me mid drop, okay?” 

Jack nodded. He could do this.

Mark jumped and switched mid air zipping upwards as small Kestrel. JAck watched in amazement as it flew around circling in mid air, he could do this.

He couldn’t do this, he realized as the bird hit the floor with a soft thunk. 

“Shit sorry!” The bird hopped up glaring at him and making loud shrieking chirps. “I get it! I fucked up!”

The bird seemed to huff indignantly before taking off upwards again. He chirped and then swooped down slowing himself as he fell. Jack focused on the air encircling Mark’s tiny bird body. The telling green flash of light went off and there was Mark, the kestrel, stuck in mid air. Jack cheered excitedly. He did it!

He spread his arms out to aid his concentration, he slowly let Mark descend til he could reach up and take Mark in his hands. He released mark and watched as he looked around before happily chirping at Jack.

“I did it Mark!” Mark fluttered a bit in a happy fashion before adjusting himself. “Fuck! Watch the talons asshole” 

He watched as Mark flew into the air.

They went on like this for hours, Mark flying around and Jack freezing him mid-flight and mid-drop. Jack laughing at the kestrel swooping around and perching on his shoulder. After a while Jack stopped laughing as his stomach growled loudly. The flying kestrel swooped down and morphed back into a human. 

“Let’s get dinner,” Mark said as he led Jack out of the room. Jack followed happily, hoping this means Mark is considered his friend now. Mark chatted happily as they walked, changing his face to go along with what he was saying, telling stories about people and his times here.

As they walked into the cafeteria, Jack noted the walls have switched to evening skylines. Mark nudged him towards a nearby empty table.

“I’ll grab you food, I doubt they’ve got you formally registered yet. Bob and Wade might join us by the way.”With that he swept off towards the food line. Jack watched hi

m as he went through the line grabbing two plates. He snapped out of his odd trance by Bob and the guy he assumed was Wade sitting down.

“Mark grabbing food?” Bob asked as he set his own plate down.

“Yeah.” Jack answered as he shifted a bit in his chair. 

“Oh sorry, this is Wade, Wade this is that guy from yesterday, Jack”

Jack waved with a smile that Wade returned.

“So what is your power by the way?” Wade asked.

“I sort of stop time? It’s confusing” Jack scrunched his face in annoyance at not being sure.

“Oh cool, I project light,” Wade said as he lifted a hand that started to glow.

“Can you make like, holograms?” Jack shifted forwards as Wade held out a hand, in it a small light started and it took shape as a small tulip waving in an invisible wind.

“Holy shit that’s amazing” Jack watched in wonder as it morphed into a daisy. Jack looked up as Mark sat down next to him but quickly turned his attention back towards what was now a happy mushroom that had little arms. 

“So fucking cool”  He heard Mark chuckle as he started to eat. Jack looked down and realized there was food in front of him.

“Oh thanks Mark.” He smiled at the other as he started to eat listening to Mark and his friends talking and telling stories. They were a loud and happy bunch and at certain point Jack realized Mark’s voice would change. When he would laugh really hard his voice would go into a deep baritone or when he would shriek it would be a very different voice from the one he’d had the rest of the time.

Was it his actual voice? Had he been hiding his voice this entire time from everyone too? By the time they had all finished their food and had calmed their laughter they had realized the cafeteria had thinned out. Bob and Wade stood up and said their goodbyes going back to their room, they had an early training session tomorrow.

“Mark?” Jack asked quietly, Mark looked up to show he was listening, “Are we… Can we be friends?”

It sounded pitiful even to his own ears but he needed to be sure. He just needed at least one, he wasn’t sure if Felix counted, he was friendly but was also forced to room with him so it was confusing. 

“Of course Jack,” Mark put his hand on Jack’s to emphasize his point. “I’ll be your friend and I’m sure Bob and Wade will be too”

Jack’s stomach clenched as Mark removed his hand. 

“T-thanks” 

Mark stood up, “I’ll show you back to your room, you probably don’t know your way back by now”

Jack smiled as he followed him. He was probably going to like it here, with all these new people he seemed to befriend.


	8. Numbered Like Inmates

“You’ll be sorted by type and some other stuff but we’ll get to that later, for now, show us what you can do,” A man said. There were two of them, one with blue eyes and one with brown they both had dark hair but their hair went in different directions. They were at least at similar heights and wore simple t-shirts and jeans.

Jack wasn’t really scared of them but he was terrified he was going to somehow fuck this up. They were in a large cylindrical room with light grey metal walls. There seemed to be different terrains in here and a domed ceiling for height. There were a waterfall and a pond to his left which somehow calmed him a little and high trees surrounding it. The green from the tropical area slowly trickled into a sandy desert complete with a cactus. The two men were standing in front of Jack in the massive room, good news they didn’t speak in unison like Jack thought they would.

He isn’t sure but he thinks they said their names were Dan and Phil, however, they never said which one was which.

Jack looked around, he wasn’t sure how to demonstrate his powers. He walked the short path to the waterfall and stood in front of it. He focused on the rush of the water in front him feeling the energy leave him in a wave has he watched the water freeze mid-air.The water twisting and curling in the air, Jack had never had to exert himself to hold something but it was extremely intricate and a larger sort of quantity. The two men hovered (not literally) nearby and watched as he stepped onto the non-moving water. He grasped a part of the waterfall and allowed it to move through the air while still maintaining it’s shape. He was getting a headache and his vision was slowly going out on him. He turned around and walked over to the two and held out the waterfall shard so they could see and then released his hold on all the water.

Just before he passed out, splashing into the small pool. He was vaguely aware of hands grabbing him before he went under.

* * *

 

“Fuuuuuuck” Jack muttered as he vaguely became conscious. He blearily looked around, he was in a bed with light blue blankets, in a room that was painted a light purple. There was a soft looking chair next to the bed that was empty. There was a door that was left open but no one was going by right now. Which was explained by the clock on the table across the room that said it was currently 3am.

Jack decided it was alright to go back to sleep and slowly went back to sleep in the only barely comfortable bed.

* * *

 

“Nice job, you managed to pass out before you started training”

The voice dragged him out of his slumber, it was the voice he’d come to recognize as Mark’s. He opened his eyes to see another random face, Jack groaned and rolled away from him.

“Five more minutes”

He heard the low chuckled he had heard at dinner last night and slowly rolled over and looked up. Now that he thought about it, he really wouldn’t know if it was Mark’s real face or not.

“Where do you even get these faces from? Are you just going to decide to be me one day” Mark looked thoughtful for a second before answering.

“Eh maybe”

Jack wasn’t sure if he would be happy with Mark looking like him for a day or not. Mark seemed to remember something as he smiled widely.

“Dude! They sorted you, though!”

“Ah cool, so do I have to go to training now?”

“Yeah but it’ll be cool, and it’s one on one training for the first couple months so you don’t accidentally murder your group!”

“...Lovely” It made sense but was still terrifying, the people who would be in his group would have the power to kill him possibly.

“And then after that, you choose a career and are put into a group from there. That group is more diverse and has a set number.”

“Set number?” Jack asked, confused.

“So your group, in the beginning, is made up of people with similar powers to you but it doesn’t have a limit or a minimum because it’s just the amount of people that happen to have those abilities, meanwhile, the career group is usually 4-5 people, depending on the influx of graduates.”

“What careers even are there?” Jack wasn’t convinced there were a lot.

“Well, there’s a whole medical community, agents which can be combat, which is what I’m in line to do, registration which is like office work and working here as well as the other regional centers, training and education, you could even get worldly training and just get a normal job. The world is out there”

Mark gestured widely with his arms causing Jack to let out a snicker.

“So you’re going into combat? Why were you patrolling the streets by the way?” Jack had been wondering no one seemed to leave often.

“Oh, when you’re as far along in the program as me, Bob, and Wade, you have required community service. So we had to go out and ‘patrol’ for new recruits. Bob can sort of sense energy, and Wade makes a good flashlight. So it works out pretty well.” Mark shrugged. “Speaking of which Felix has been following me all day asking where you’ve been so if you want to go back to your room that’d be great. Get him off my back.” Mark joked

Jack nodded, he wanted out of here man.

Mark held out his hand to help Jack up, which he graciously accepted. They stood there for a second as Jack stood there, staring at their clasped hands.

“Um…” Jack jerked his head up to look at Mark who was staring at him quizzically with an eyebrow raised.

“Oh uh, sorry.” Jack released Mark’s hand from his hold and took a step back. Something about Mark holding his hand was so entrancing, he was going to look into that later.

For now, he had to focus on Mark leading him back to his room, he was starting to recognize the hallways, he might even be able to figure out how to go places on his own soon.

“JACK”

He about fell backwards as he was embraced by none other than Felix.

“Hi…buddy,” Jack said awkwardly patted his back as Mark cackled to his left.

“You left me!” Felix faux sobbed clutching Jack.

“I’ll never leave you again” Jack played along, clutching Felix.

Over Felix’s shoulder, he could see Mark smiling at their antics. Jack carefully pried himself from Felix’s grasp and stepped back a bit.

“So did you get sorted yet?” Felix asked excitedly, bouncing a tad.

“Apparently?” Jack looked to Mark, who nodded and held out a business card sized piece of cardstock.

**Group Assignment**

_Sean McLoughlin_

**Personal ID: 2352584**

Report to Training @8:30am Tomorrow

(Further scheduling will be done after assessment)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's how the ID's are made btw  
> 
> 
> So as I explained somewhere in the comments, active means it needs to be triggered/activated somehow while passive means it just happens, physical or mental are pretty self-explanatory: does the power come from you or the physical world, outside/self: does it affect you or the world around you, and combat/accessory: can it be used directly to harm someone or could it aid you in the fight.
> 
> Type IDs area very basic idea of where you derive your powers from which are based a primary and a secondary, you are generally put in groups of people with your first Type ID digit.


	9. An Eye for Fashion

Jack stood in front of the door he was at just three days ago. It now seemed more looming and terrifying as he held his personal ID card. With a shaking hand, he reached up and pushed the buttons that matched the numbers on the card. He braced himself as the doors opened and he stepped inside.   
It was another large room that was circular but it didn’t have the high ceiling that Mark’s room had.

  
A man stood in the middle of the room with what seemed to be a fro pulled back into a bun.

  
“Hey, Jack!” He greeted cheerfully, “I’m Dan.”

  
“Hi…” Jack muttered awkwardly, eyes still roving around the room.

  
“So I’m going to teach you how not to randomly freeze everything around you. Though I’ve heard it hasn’t happened during your stay yet?”

  
“Thank god” Jack muttered wringing his hands. He was calmer here so it was less of a worry. There was now the worry that he was going to accidentally lash out when Mark touches his hand.

  
“Alright first things first I've got a marble and I'm going to roll it, you're going to work on slow it down as lightly as you can. Barely even touching it, got it?”   
Jack nodded, this was going to be rough. Danny looked at him to make sure he was ready before sitting on the floor gesturing for Jack to also sit. He obliged and sat across from Danny fiddling with his shoelaces. He should find out about getting new clothes eventually.

  
Silently, Danny held out his hand with the marble and rolled it horizontally between them. Immediately Jack focused on it and with a flash of green light the marble stopped. He frowned at the offending ball before trying to relax his hold on the ball. It started rolling again but jerkily slowed and sped up. Danny was scanning his face as it scrunched in concentration.

  
The ball moved faster but Jack felt his hold on it still, he the tension in his shoulders loosened.

  
“Good work greenie,” Danny said softly as to not throw his concentration.

  
“Greenie?” Jack asked looking up, letting the ball roll off. Danny smiled holding up his hand, an image appeared in front of him like an instant replay, Jack watched as him in the image focused on the ball and then green light swirled through his left eye it glowed as Jack used his powers.

  
“What the fuck” Jack gasped staring at the image. Danny wiped his hand through it making it disappear.

  
“It's just a physical representation of your power, it's pretty common. This girl in your group has this like sweet purple aura thing, so I mean. On one hand, it keeps you from being too stealthy about your use of powers, on the other, you look cool as shit.”

  
“Weird… Do you have one?” Jack asked curiously. He hadn't noticed anything but then again he wasn't looking for anything.

  
“Nah, could you imagine, though? I’d totally like, have a glowing boner or something.”

  
Jack cracked up laughing at the imagery, he like Danny. After he calmed Danny had him trying again and giving him pointers. It was tedious and draining but at least Danny was nice.

  
“Alright it's about eleven now so I'm going to send you off, you seem to be doing pretty well so I'm going to have your lessons twice a week. Show up- fuck what day is it? You know what fuck it whatever the day after tomorrow is, show up then. Same time.”

  
“Alright cool”

  
“Don't be afraid to practice at any time, by the way, you can come in here whenever” Danny called as Jack walked out. He waved before end up in the hallway.

  
It was only by sheer luck that he managed to get to his room without getting horribly lost. He opened the door and flopped on his bed.

  
“Training huh?” Felix laughed from his perch on his bed. Jack looked up to see him cross-legged on the bed, eyes closed.

  
“I'm dead”

  
“Nah man you should've seen this one kid in my group after his first training, passed out for four days and he was just covered in writing.”

  
When Jack looked at him in confusion Felix explained, “His power is he gets like fortunes written on him”

  
“Oh, that makes… Slightly more sense”

  
“He got some crazy shit written on his arms man, there was one about like green and red, something about an eyeball. Weird shit. Y’know our powers would be a lot more useful if our predictions actually made sense.”

  
“Well I mean it wouldn’t be a premonition without ominous mysteries.” Jack joked. Felix laughed and nodded.

  
“Yeah… Hey speaking of mysterious shit, it’s about time for lunch and you’re in the system now. Food time bro.” Felix got up and gestured Jack to come with.

  
“Hey by the way, how do I get clothing? I’ve been living out of these and I think they’re starting to rot off of me…” Jack gestured to his scruffy clothing.

  
“We’ve got a clothing store around here, I’ll take you to it after lunch?” Felix asked.

  
“Yeah, sure. That’d be cool” Jack replied following Felix as he held the door open for him.

  
As they wandered into the cafeteria a rowdier group of people seemed to about to fight in the middle of a group of tables.

  
“Felix…?” Jack turned to Felix who seemed to be in as much shock as he was. Jack turned back to the scene that was unfolding in front of them.

  
“It’s not my problem? Really last time I checked that was my sister you had your dick in!” One of them growled taking a step forward. The other stepped up to meet him.

“It’s not like you even want to be related to that whore!”

  
“You dick!”

  
The first one pushed his hands out shoving the other to the ground and onto his back. Behind him, the room went pitch dark and tendrils of shadows swirled around him.

  
“You’re gonna fucking pay” He growled. The guy on the floor scrambled to his feet throwing up his hands letting out a blast of sound. Knocking the guy with the shadows backwards and flying into the wall.

  
“They’re going to destroy the room!” Jack squeaked out panicking. Before he could think of diving in to do something stupid another guy strolled in between them.

  
“Let’s just…”

  
He snapped his fingers and the two boys fighting froze and started they went backwards in time redoing the fight until the were both just standing there angrily and there was no longer a whole in the wall. The guy snapped his fingers and it they were back to yelling.

  
“Alright!” He yelled cutting off their argument.

  
They stared at him, now noticing his presence.

  
“If you could please work this out in a less destructive manner somewhere with fewer people, we would all appreciate it.” He said smoothly.

  
“Who’s that?” Jack whispered to Felix.

  
“I think his name is Ross? Came here a couple weeks ago, pretty chill guy.”

  
Jack nodded and watched as the two boys huffed and stormed out in opposite directions, Ross just shook his head and disappeared into the crowd.

  
“That was… Interesting…”

  
“You can say that again” Felix laughed, “Hey how about, instead of grabbing lunch first, we get you those clothes and I’ll tell Mark to bring food to the room?”

  
“Uh, sure” Jack agreed. Felix smiled wide and grabbed his hand dragging him off in the direction of what Jack assumed the store was in.

  
“We’ll make you fabulous, Jack.”

  
Jack wasn’t sure he agreed but Felix seemed to be excited so he played along for now. They slid into a door that simply read “Clothing Department” on an ordinary white door. When it was opened it revealed rows and rows and rows of clothing that just blurred into a mish-mash of colors.

  
“Holy shit”

  
“You can say that again!” Felix was already skipping off into the delves of the large room.

  
“Wait up!” Jack started to jog after him. By the time he caught up with him, Felix already had armfuls of clothing.

  
“You’re going to try these on,” He said seriously enough that Jack didn’t even dare to protest. It was mostly various T-Shirts and jeans to begin with, “We have to get the basics,” Felix had said. Then it seemed to go downhill, at least in Jack’s opinion.

  
“I don’t need a blazer, Felix”

  
“Yes, you do! If you want to get Mark’s attention we need to make you look stylish.”

  
“I don’t want Mark’s attention!”

  
“Yes you do”

  
“Fuck off”

  
Jack sighed, he liked Mark, it was also hard as fuck to develop a crush on him, as he didn’t even know what he looked like. In the end, Jack caved and let Felix collect a large amount of various clothing and accessories that Jack decided was probably never going to leave his closet.

  
Felix had started carting the piles of clothing to a counter Jack hadn’t seen before while Jack changed back into his clothing.   
When he walked out Felix was ringing a little bell on the counter looking around exasperatedly.

  
“Hurry up fucking..”

  
There was a pop and suddenly there was a guy standing there leaning against the door.

  
“What’s up nip slips.” He drawled.

  
“Uh.. Hi Cr1tikal, this is Jack, Jack this is Cr1tikal”

  
Jack waved awkwardly at him, the dude looked like he was about to go surfing or something at any moment.

  
“What room?” He asked.

  
“107?” Jack awkwardly spat out.

  
“Are you not sure?” Cr1tikal asked in a monotone, raising an eyebrow. “Have you just wandering through the halls with no concept of numbers? Are they a mystery to even you?”

  
“Give him a break, man.” Felix patted Jack sympathetically. “Rough day”

  
Cr1tikal shrugged before shoving all the clothes in a couple bags, grabbing them and popping off again.

  
“Is he putting the stuff in our room”

  
“Yep, he’s cool like that”

  
Cr1tikal popped back behind the counter, “Alright the deed is done assholes, now fuck off”

  
Felix waved cheerfully before skipping off again towards the exit. Jack threw one last glance at the guy before turning to follow Felix back through the halls.

  
“Mark should’ve dropped off food by now.” He said looking over his shoulder, back at Jack.

  
“Oh cool, wait, when did you ask him?” Felix never grabbed him or anything as far as Jack knew, and he was pretty sure no one had phones here.

  
“I had Marzia ask him.”

  
“Who’s Marzia?” Jack asked confused.

  
“Friendly telepath, we talk a bunch so, I mean, I just asked her to pass along the message.”

  
“Okay then… Are you guys like..?”

  
“No no- I wouldn’t… She-” Felix stuttered a bit flailing his hands.

  
“Ooooh So Felix has a crush?” Jack teased with a grin.

  
“Shut up” Felix squinted at him.

  
Jack just laughed and playfully shoved him before taking off down the hall. He looked back to see Felix jogging to catch up.

  
“Oh shit.”

  
Jack collided with someone, effectively taking them down. Jack looked down to see a person he didn’t recognize stuck under him.

  
“We need to stop doing this Jack.” It was Mark.

  
“Oh shit sorry Mark, wasn’t looking where I was going.” Jack was sitting practically in his lap at this point and didn’t seem to realize it.

  
“I got you food?” Mark held up a bag with two take out containers in it.

  
“Thanks, man!” Jack smiled grabbing the bags from him and scrambling to stand up. He reached down to help Mark up and ignored Felix who was stifling laughter behind him.

  
“You want to hang out in our room for a bit?” Jack offered. He looked at Mark hopefully but quickly shrank a little when Mark frowned a bit.

  
“Sorry Jack, I’ve gotta run to go get ready for patrol duty. Maybe tomorrow?”

  
“That’s fine” Jack smiled a little at him and waved as he hurried off. Jack went to continue walking.

  
“Jack we’re in front of our door, you idiot.” Felix grabbed him and dragged him inside before swiping the bag from him.

  
“You totally have a crush on him.”

  
“ _Shut up_.”


	10. High Beams and Low Insults

Jack was terrified right now, clinging to the random beam going across a foot below the ceiling that was put into his training room.

 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jack called down to Danny who was just sitting in a lawn chair happily.

“No, but you’re doing great!” He called back up to him. 

 

This was supposed to be some sort of training exercise, Jack needed to slowly lower himself down from the roof. It had been three weeks since their first training and after this, he would be shoved into his group. It had been a hard amount of time, due to Jack’s powers not wanting to cooperate. He has only freaked out a froze people once so far and Jack was happy about it, That’s what he came here to learn.

 

“If you can get yourself down then we’re done for today” Danny offered encouragingly.

 

“I’m scared of heights!” Jack shrieked still angry that Danny had got him up here. 

 

“You should’ve said that before we started this, but you’re there now so you might as well get yourself down.” 

 

Jack growled but relented, he sighed deeply and slowly built up his powers to affect him like he had been taught and slowly let go. He floated down towards the floor, feeling like he was swimming in molasses before his back lightly hit the ground. It had been the smoothest he had ever used his powers. He released his hold and let out a hysterical laugh.

 

“I did it!”

 

“Way to go!” Danny cheered with him. “You can leave now, the group meets next Monday at 3pm” 

 

Jack nodded and dragged himself out the door. As he wandered down the hall he heard voices.

“This way is the training facilities, you’ll end up there soon”

 

It was Mark’s voice. Jack perked up and turned to see two guys strolling down the hall one walking slightly ahead of the other, Jack assumed that was Mark.

 

“Hey, Jack! This is Aaron, Aaron this is my friend Jack” 

 

Jack both preened at the word friend and also deflated. This crush was getting out of control.

 

“Hi Aaron” Jack smiled and went in for a handshake, only to be rejected with a disdainful glance at him. This was very off-putting,Jack had even showered this morning.

 

“Hi...  Jack,” He said disdainfully lifting an eyebrow as he looked him up and down. Mark seemed oblivious to his distaste, instead deciding to cheerfully move along.

 

“Well, Jack we’ve got a tour to do, bye!” Mark grabbed Aaron’s hand and skipped off. Jack stood there confused.

 

“Bye Mark…” He said to himself. He slumped a little and continued to walk back to his room. He avoided people and hid in his empty room for most of the day, he’s pretty sure Felix is downstairs playing tennis in the rec area, he mentioned thinking about doing so yesterday.

 

Jack sprawled on his bed staring at the ceiling contemplating life. It’s not even like Mark was that close of a friend, he didn’t even abandon him, maybe Jack was being dramatic. Yeah, that was it, he was being dramatic. It’s just, Aaron was an ass, why would Mark be so cheerful around him? 

 

Jack groaned and rolled onto his stomach. His life problems went from running from a scary sounding government organization to crushing on a guy. Was he even sure it was a crush? It could just be a sort of need for friendship.

 

He decided fuck it, he was going to explore the building even more, rather than dwell on his problems for an hour. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants Felix had made him take and a clean T-shirt changing into them. He dragged a hand through his hair before sliding out of his room.

 

He dodged people in the hall and made his way out into the grassy area Agent Toast had asked him if he’d like to join in. Now it was fully built, complete with an artificial LCD screen sky. Today it had people coming and going, groups of friends and also just people hanging out on their own, like Jack.

 

Jack sat down playing with the grass. 

 

“You okay there?” Jack looked up from the grass blade he was holding to the guy who was standing in front of him.

 

“Uh yeah, just sorta confused?” The guy tilted his head before sitting down in front of him.

 

“What about?” He asked looking interested, “My name is Mathew by the way, call me Matt, though.”

 

“Jack,” Jack said motioning to himself, “I’m confused about why I’m upset?” 

 

It sounded dumb when Jack thought it through. He was just a mess of emotions and probably hormones. 

 

“About what?” 

 

“There’s this guy I might have a crush on?” Jack started, “I don’t think I do, though..”

 

“If you don’t-”

 

“Fuck dude!” It was Mark cracking up laughing with what seemed to be cracking up about something Aaron said. The latter looking over and spotting Jack and narrowing his eyes a little.

“How about we go check out the Tennis thing going on” Aaron proposed, Jack kept himself from growling out loud. Something about that guy was slimy and creepy to him. He could almost feel Matt looking at him and back at Aaron.

 

“I thought you wanted to-”

 

“Well, you did say you wanted to see your one friend right? I can wait”

 

Mark smiled adoringly at him and they walked off continuing talking leaving Jack brewing in hate.

 

“Please tell me you don’t like the British one.” Matt almost pleaded. Jack laughed at him and shook his head.

“Nah, I’m after the one who I have never actually seen”

 

“Ah, the rumors around Mark Fischbach? Those have been brewing for years, man.”

 

“I don’t really like… I wouldn’t make him show me his face, I’m a little curious but, it’s his face. It’s just dumb because I’m still fucking attracted to him.” Jack rubbed his hands on his face exasperation.

 

“I mean statistically, he’s probably shown his actual face to people around here before.” Jack removed his head from his hands in interest. “Well, the guy has been here for most of his life and has only recently started going up to the surface, meaning, most of the people he has seen in his life are people that have come and gone from this place, which has a limited number of occupants so it’s extremely likely he’s resorted to being himself at one point or another, not even mentioning the possibility of sick days where he wouldn’t have the strength to change his appearance. He doesn’t like to be the same person too often so all you’d have to do is round up the security footage from day to day through the last several years and pull the faces he’s worn several times.”

 

Jack just stared at him. “I don’t think I want to go through that much effort…”

 

“I’m not telling you to, I’m just telling you how you  _ could _ ” Matt mused, waving his hand flippantly, ignoring Jack’s raised eyebrow. “Besides I already know what he looks like so no, I haven’t done that”

 

“Alright,” Jack said leaning back. “Wait hold on, how?”

 

“I’ve been here forever and my power is literally gaining knowledge from people and things Mr.Mcloughlin” 

 

“Oh..” Jack mumbled dumbly. He really wasn’t used to everyone around him having powers despite being here for almost a month. Even with being in a building packed with people Jack had managed to be a recluse.

 

“So, you have a crush on a shapeshifter who seems to be enamored with the dickish British guy.” Matt simplified.

 

“Yeah.” Jack sighed. It was a mess if Jack said so himself. 

 

“Nice…” Matt nodded patting Jack’s shoulder sympathetically. “I’m not going to tell you all about him since that’d be an invasion of privacy, but I will tell you to keep an eye out for him with that Aaron guy. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got some new trainees to teach” He got up and waved as he jogged off.

 

Jack sat in the grass a little while longer before getting up and dusting off his newfound favorite pants. 

 

“Maybe…” Jack muttered to himself, “I’ll just do that… I’ll just keep an eye out for him, and just not make a big deal out of it. I don’t really have enough friends to just… ruin it” 

 

Jack didn’t like this decision but it was necessary and he really didn’t trust Aaron. Something about that guy was off and Jack wasn’t a fan.


	11. Hi It's Me, Idiot Man

Jack was an idiot, that’s all he could think of he stared at Mark who was still lecturing him. He might’ve tried telling Mark that he didn’t approve of Aaron and now he was sitting shamefully in the cafeteria while Mark continued to rant at him. People were staring at the commotion and Bob and Wade were silent.

 

“He didn’t shake your hand because of his fucking powers you idiot!” Mark was borderline screaming and Jack regretted everything. “If he touches you, you could be electrocuted! I can change my skin to resist it but unless I missed something, you can’t”

 

“But- but- he was… He was being rude to me! He looked at me like I disgusted him!” Jack finally spoke up. 

 

“He was tired as shit from having a long day, and he wasn’t rude to you at all!” Mark protested, glaring at him. “God, you’re being an ass! To think I thought you were a nice guy.”

 

“I was just trying to protect you.” Jack whimpered in defeat.

 

“Were you? Or were you just jealous?” Mark growled. Jack only watched as Mark stormed out, features changing rapidly in rage. Jack glanced over and Bob and Wade who were just staring at him.

 

“I fucked up” Jack grumbled to himself, he put his head in his arms. The whole “Keep it to himself” thing lasted a day before he cracked.  Now that Jack thought about it maybe it was all just Jack’s imagination. “Should I go apologize to him?”

 

“I think you should wait a bit, he’s probably gone to practice combat so I don’t think going after him now is a good idea,” Bob warned. Wade nodded in agreement.

 

“What’s even going on with you, dude? You’re generally nice.” Wade inquired tilting his head at Jack who looked like a rumpled mess.

 

“I don’t even know, I was doing okay and everything just fell apart.” Jack wished he could take it back, he doubted Mark was going to be his friend now. 

 

“You should really just like, lay low for awhile” Wade advised. Jack shrugged and got up from the table, he left the cafeteria and ended up in an empty hallway. He stopped, looked around and then slid down a wall before sitting on the floor. He put his arms on his knees and hid his face in his arms. Why did have to go and fuck this up?

 

“You okay there?” It was Aaron. Jack looked up to see Aaron sit across from him.

 

“Not really but.. It’ll pass.” Jack replied sadly.

 

“Sorry for not telling you about the handshake thing man, you just get so used to not telling people about your powers.”

 

“I hear ya” Jack gave him a tiny smile, “I never told anyone I had powers until I got here”

 

“Holy shit dude, my parents knew but that’s cause I kept shocking everyone.”

 

“Damn dude that must’ve sucked, I only really like… froze time? But then no one really noticed… There was the one time I got flipped a coin and I accidentally got it stuck and my mom walked in, had to pretend I was just holding the coin, not fun” Aaron was laughing and Jack smiled at him, he wasn’t so bad.

 

“Wait- Do your parents know you’re here?” Aaron asked.

 

“I’m not sure… I didn’t, I didn’t tell them I left,” Jack said sadly. 

 

“Fuck dude, do you want to see if we can send them a letter or something? I was gonna write one to my parents anyways.” Aaron offered.

 

“That’d… That’d be nice” Jack smiled.

 

Aaron got up and Jack followed.

 

“I just realized, I have no idea where I’m going,” Aaron chuckled.

 

“I’m not sure where we need to go? Maybe that’s like, the office?” Jack hypothesized. Aaron shrugged and they marched off wandering through the halls. Thankfully, Jack managed not to get them horribly lost.

 

“Hello Jack and Aaron,” the woman at the desk smiled, Jack figured she had some sort of power that allowed her to know names or something like Matt. “What can I do for you?”

 

“We wanted to know if we could write letters to our families?” Aaron asked. The lady looked between them and their puppy eyes and smiled adoringly.

 

“Aren’t the two of you sweet. Here’s some paper” She handed them two sheets each, “You can go write them and bring them back when you’re done, I’ll mail them for you boys.” She handed them flower pens from the little pot on her desk and the two of them grabbed chairs to the side and started writing.

 

_ Dear Mom and Dad, _

_ Sorry, I just up and disappeared, I just wanted to protect you guys. I was stupid and scared and I hope you can forgive me. I don’t know if or when I’ll be able to visit home but I do miss you guys. _

_ I want you to know I’m happy, though, I’ve got friends. I mean I think I just messed up a friendship but I might be able to fix it? I might’ve gotten jealous because he was closer to this other dude than me and I was stupid. The guy is cool, though, I can see why Mark likes him. _

_ I’m sorry I never told you about my powers but I was scared of them, I’ve got them mostly under control now so that’s cool. I can control time! How cool is that! I mean, I can only just slow or freeze time, but I mean that’s still pretty cool.  _

_ How are you guys doing? Is the dog still doing okay? The first time I met Mark actually, he was a dog. Maybe I could convince him to be a dog for awhile so I can pet him… _

_ Anyways, please write back, I miss you. _

_ Your son, _

_ Sean _

 

Jack got up from his seat, Aaron was still writing. He quietly handed the paper to the lady and thanked her.

 

“No problem,” She smiled.

 

Jack sat down again and waited for Aaron to finish up writing his letter. When he did he got up and handed the letter over and thanked her. They both walked out of the office only to wander the halls. 

 

“We should probably find Mark” Aaron speculated.

 

“He’s probably wearing my face right now punching himself in the face.” Jack sighed. Aaron patted him on the shoulder.

 

“He’ll forgive you, man, he seems like a nice kind of guy.” Aaron soothed. 

  
“I hope so” 


	12. Dizzy Lights

Jack and Aaron awkwardly stood in the doorway to Mark’s room.

 

“He’s going to shank me I know it” Jack muttered.

 

“He’s not gonna shank you, you’re overreacting” Aaron replied, knocking again. 

 

“We don’t even know if he’s in here dude, he could be standing behind us right now.”  Jack continued. Both of them turned and saw nothing, and turned back towards the door.

 

“Holy fuck!” Jack sputtered falling backwards, Mark had opened the door when they had turned.

 

“Idiot” Aaron cackled. “Hi Mark, Jack has something he’d like to say”

 

Jack struggled to get off the floor before standing up again. “I uh… I’m sorry Mark for being an ass to you…”  He looked up at Mark’s eyes before looking down again. Mark’s expression melted and he hugged Jack.

 

“Sorry for yelling at you,” He mumbled into Jack’s neck. 

 

“I deserved it” Jack replied not quite wanting to let go. Aaron cleared his throat and Jack realized they've been hugging for awhile now, he reluctantly pulled back and searched Mark’s face for any lingering annoyance but all he found was a kind smile.

 

L“So…” Aaron started, “You guys wanna go do something?” 

 

Mark glanced at Jack, “Sure? I don't have to train until later, so I mean,”

 

“I’ve heard they’re having laser tag sessions in the rec area as a special event, you guys wanna go?” Aaron offered.

 

“How do you even keep up with these things?” Jack questioned, he can’t even keep up with what day it was let alone what activities they had going on.

 

“They have pamphlets out” Aaron pulled one out of his pocket and waved it before shoving it back in.

 

“Still? Why would you take a pamphlet?” Jack countered bordering on hysterics.

 

“For laser tag obviously,” Mark chimed in, laughing at Jack who was waving his arms around. 

 

“You've gone from wanting to kill me to chill and wanting to play laser tag, what the fuck Mark.” Jack joked.

 

“Nah I'm just going to kill you in laser tag, it'll be fine” mark joked with a sort of glint in his eye. Jack gave him a look of faux fear before playfully bumping his shoulder with his own.

 

“Death by lasers, damn” Jack bemoaned. Aaron cackled on Mark’s left.

 

“At least, we didn’t invite Wade,” Mark laughed. “He has the habit of creating his own lasers and setting off everyone’s sensors at once, most annoying thing ever. Dirty cheater…”

 

“Aww Mark’s jealous,” Jack snickered, dodging Mark trying to swipe at him. “ So wait, you are allowed to use your powers while playing?”

 

“Hell yeah dude, otherwise it would be boring” Mark looked at him incredulously.

 

“I mean… That could get kinda dangerous though?” Jack looked at him with concern.

 

“Don’t worry, we have excellent medics” Mark gave him an evil grin, which really didn’t help Jack’s nerves. 

 

Mark led them into the Rec area that had been changed into a dark room with various colored lights dancing across the obstacles that ranged from ramps and stairs leading up to the ceiling, to walls and barriers creating hiding spots.

 

“Holy shit” Jack breathed, out of the corner of his eye he could see Aaron nod as Mark walked ahead of them up to the little desk. 

 

“We’ve got three, Mark Fischbach, Sean McLoughlin, and Aaron Ash.”

 

The girl behind the counter nodded and typed something into the computer in front of her. “You’ll be in the next party, about like, seven minutes.”

 

“Cool,” Mark replied.

 

They sat down in some chairs watching flashes of lights coming from the course as Jack fiddled with his hands, Aaron and Mark were chatting happily but Jack was a tad anxious. It was just the anticipation of adrenaline, or maybe it was just adrenaline. He could use his powers, for fun, not for training or defense. He could just be a teen for once.

Jack was snapped out of his thoughts by the girl waving them into the “briefing room” as they called it.

 

“Alright pussy farts here’s the deal,” It was that Crit1kal guy again, “No murdering each other, if you need a medic just wave your arms, if you have any left, and start screaming. No weapons other than these over glorified flashlights and whatever you can pull out of your ass. You’re going to be on the red team. Do our team proud.” He left through the door leaving Mark to help them with the vests and guns.

 

“Do we seriously use generic laser tag equipment?” Jack asked, looking at the little vest and gun incredulously.

 

“No, ours are  _ wireless”  _ Mark joked. Jack shook his head and adjusted the vest. 

 

“Am I going to short this out?” Aaron asked looking a the gun and vest suspiciously. 

 

“Nah, they’ve got little shields around them,” Mark explained. “They learned to do that pretty early on”

 

A buzzer sounded above the door with a little flashing light. 

 

“Alright!” Mark called as he pushed them towards the door. “We always do free for all so I will not hesitate to shoot either of you, your vest will turn off for 10 seconds after you get shot. Shot people, they have photo strips for sale afterwards if you’re interested.” He explained as he pushed them into the course. “Oh and one more thing, don’t die”

 

A little ding alerted them to their vests turning on as Mark shot them and ran. Jack and Aaron shared a look before they ran off in separate directions. The other groups vests were red, contrasting to their blue. 

 

Jack darted through the course looking for a good cover while lasers. He paused as a dog in a vest trotted by him, carrying the gun in its mouth. 

 

“Fuckin’ Mark” Jack muttered. He whipped around just as someone aimed him. He flicked his hand at them and a tiny ray of light was frozen in the air. 

 

“Holy fuck, I’m AWESOME” Jack cheered while shooting back and them. A flash of a person zoomed past him, shooting everyone he passed. 

 

“No you fuckin’ don’t” He growled, he froze them in place and shot them in the back. He released them as he rolled out of the way of a girl who surfed by on a wave. Jack stopped the water that went towards him and vaulted across a half wall. 

 

Lights flashed above him as he skidded to a halt in front of Mark who was now a human again. He shot at him before he fled to his left towards a ramp that led up to another level where Aaron and some other girl were facing off in some sort of odd duel of running around a short wall. Jack froze them both and shot them before he released them and scrambled back down the ramp.

 

He slid along the wall before he found a good spot and hid behind the wall shooting at Mark and the water girl who didn’t notice he had come back down. Jack wiped the sweat off his face, pausing to catch his breath while Mark seemed to obliterate the two others on the level. Jack’s head started to pound as he got out of his spot. He jogged over to shoot at them, slowly getting woozier by the minute.

 

“Fuuuck” He gargled out. This was bad, he needed out of here. The room was stifling and he was pretty sure the lights weren’t supposed to be doubled. He slumped against the wall and slid to the ground. He vaguely heard a shout that he think belonged to the speed guy. Before his vest was being taken off.

 

“Jack? Jack? Can you hear me?” This wasn’t a voice he recognized. From what is fuzzy mind could put together, it was like when Mark laughed really hard.

 

“Mark?” Jack managed, he really didn’t want to pass out again. He’s done that enough.

 

“It’ll be okay Jack stay with me” Mark assured him. Jack felt him being lifted which really didn’t help his already nauseous stomach. He liked this voice, it was lower than the other one, it was smooth and warm and Jack just wanted to bask in it as Mark carried him out whispering calming encouragements as they moved through the hall.

 

“What happened?” Aaron asked, somewhere behind Mark.

 

“I’m not sure, he wasn’t near me when he went down,” Mark replied, worry tingeing his voice. 

 

“Weird…” Aaron muttered, falling silent. Jack didn’t pass out but he really wasn’t conscious. He was aware when they entered the medical ward though, as the smell of chemicals hit his nose and he was set onto a bed.

“What happened?” A lady asked.

 

“He just suddenly slumped over,” Mark explained, his voice and changed back into the higher pitched fake voice. Jack zoned out for the rest of it focusing on the feeling of rocking in his gut. This was a bad time and he just wanted to nap, maybe hug his mom.

 

“...I’ll come back after my training” Jack heard Mark say. 

 

“I’m just going to check you out,” He heard the medic lady say as a warm feeling washed over his body.

 

“Hm… That’s odd” He heard her remark. “I’ll have to send in a report… You get some rest Sean, I’ll wake you up later.”

  
Jack dozed off trying to ignore the pounding in his skull.


	13. March Away Mark

Jack has been trapped in this godforsaken room for three days, they won’t let him leave. They haven’t told him why but there’s been a lot of vague whispers. It was scary, to say the least. The longer he stayed the more he missed his friends.

 

Then again, even if Jack escaped it’s not like he could really get anywhere, every time he tries to stand nausea takes over and he crumpled to the ground. Last time it took an hour for the medic lady (he still hasn’t found out her name) to find him writhing on the floor.

 

Mark still visited often, he was told his letter had been sent through their weird magic sounding mail system, and Aaron, Felix,Bob, and Wade  visited occasionally with stories from the outside. They tried to keep him happy, Mark reenacting things by turning into various characters, stories from growing up here, as well as all  the weird stuff that he’s seen while going back up to the surface recently.

 

Right now, though, he was alone. Machines to his right beeped steadily and Jack was sick of tThis room. They had moved him again so instead of the light purple he was in a stark white room with clinical lighting and it made Jack feel even more groggy.

 

“God I hate everything” He growled to himself glaring at the ceiling. He can barely even remember what happened after he fell over at laser tag. He thinks someone carried him, all he could really register was the pounding in his head. It was painful to even think about.

 

Jack watched as the door opened and the medic lady came in. She hustled over to him before checking all the equipment before doing the weird waving hand motion over him that spread a warm wave over him.

“You seem to be doing okay… Hope this won’t effect-” She stopped herself from continuing. “No need to worry you!” She smiled before heading back to the door. “By the way, your friend Mark is here!”

 

As she left, she held the door open for Mark to slide in before the door swung shut behind him. Mark sat down in the chair that he had been occupying as much as he could since he got put in this room.

 

“How are you?” Mark asked politely. This had all become a ritual, this ritual kept Jack sane and vaguely content.

 

“Fine, you?” Jack answered with the same answer he had been giving every time he was asked.

 

“I'm alright… If I hear correctly your mom sent a letter to you.” Mark said, hoping to cheer Jack up. “I think somebody should bring it around on a bit…”

 

Jack had perked up and was trying to sit up. As if to look around for the letter, however, him being upright was not going to go well.

 

“Woah woah, Jack hold on they'll get it to you later” Mark pressed his hand against his chest to keep him down causing Jack’s vision to go black and his head swirled.

 

“Jack?” Mark asked through the murk of Jack's brain right now.

 

“Hmm?” He mumbled out not feeling pain but like he was swimming in shadows.

 

“Nurse! Ma’am!” Mark called running for the door. “He's- he’s going under again!”

 

The lady came back, Jack registered her hurried footsteps.

 

“What happened?” She asked confused, he had been fine.

 

“He went to sit up and I- I tried to keep him down and he just…” Mark paused as the medic lady did something. “What? What are you..?”

 

“You need to leave” she spat out sounding not angry.

 

“What?” Mark's  voice raised in confusion. Jack could hear a scuffle as he assumed Mark was being pushed out. Jack panicked trying to wake up to reach out for Mark, he could hear the heartbeat monitor beep sporadically.

 

“Agent Toast will hear about this young man!” She yelled as she slammed the door in his face. “Teenagers these days… Stupid pranks. Agent toast will deal with him I'm sure, no need to worry, dear”

 

Jack could feel it as she patted his arm in a comforting manner. What did it mean, though? Did Mark try to poison him? Why would he, though? They were friends, at least, he had thought so. The horror in Mark’s voice echoed in Jack's ears still.

 

This wasn’t nearly as bad as laser tag had been so he didn’t pass out, he just lounged in his thoughts as his vision slowly faded back in. He didn’t know how long he had been staring into the abyss thinking before a girl walked in.

 

She smiled at him and handed him an envelope. She left him to the letter as Jack just stared at it. He was scared, they obviously cared enough to send a letter back but what if it was them saying they never wanted to see him again? These thoughts were obviously just idle worries with no real backing to them but it still made his heart beat a touch faster.

 

“Here goes nothing” He whispered to himself.

 

He gently opened the envelope the best he could, only tearing it a little bit. He pulled out the slip of paper and took a large inhale before reading.

 

_Dear Sean,_

 

_We missed you so much! I can’t believe you just ran off like that, it broke our hearts to find out you left. We understand why, though, we hope you’re safe. We miss you too, your father went out looking for you but I guess you were already gone by then, we tried Sean._

_As for the friends, you’ve got to control that temper of yours I swear… I hope you fix things with him, you need it. Maybe you can get an extra friend out of this?_

_The dog’s fine, he misses you too. Maybe we can find out if we can visit? I don’t know if they’d let us bring them, though. Perhaps we can just show your friend a picture of Gizmo, not quite the same but close enough._

_Try to write to us again soon Jack, we’d love to hear how you’re doing and all the cool things you can do now. Also, if you’re going to date that boy, keep me updated Sean._

_Love you always,_

_Ma_

Tears splattered the page as Jack read, he fucking missed them so much. He wondered how he could reply while in the medical ward. He laughed at the last line and clutched the paper. He missed his family, he missed not worrying about everything though he did admit that not having to worry about freezing time was nice.

_  
_ When he graduated from this place, he was visiting his family immediately, he decided. He was going to become a combat agent and he was going to help others like him and protect people who didn’t have abilities.


	14. Shady Deals for Hearts

Jack was getting better, or so they said, Mark hadn’t visited in awhile, he wasn’t sure why and the nurse shrugged any time Jack asked about him. Jack was sort of sick of it and wanted his friend back, he hadn’t even seen any of the others.

 

Jack really wanted to move, though, he needed to walk around, maybe stretch his limbs for the first time in weeks.

 

They did stand him up occasionally, to prevent him from getting bed sores and such, it didn’t really count as moving to Jack. Today, though, he was told he should be good enough to be allowed back into his dorm with Felix and allowed to have food that wasn’t “formulated for growth and healing”, which Jack hypothesized meant, “going to be as gross as possible”.

 

The medic’s name with Mary, he found out. Jack liked her, she was nice and would chat with him when he was particularly lonely. There was talk about getting him a phone or something of the sort so he could talk to his mom more often.

 

Bob proposed a room with computers in it for video calls and the idea had been sent up to the co-heads of the organization who didn’t even have code names, which made them terrifying. Jack heard they were vaguely nice but he had never met them so he couldn’t say definitively if they were or not.

 

Mary hustled in and greeted him.

 

“You ready to return to the world?” She asked him.

 

“As ready as I’ll ever be” He sighed shifting up on his elbows and moved his legs towards the edge of the bed. She helped him up and led him out to the hallway. He was doing better than he thought he would, even though his steps were shaky.

 

“Alright dear, Felix is here to get you back to your room, make sure you eat a good dinner”

 

“I will” Jack smiled and waved.

 

“Jack! You’re free! The blonde cheered as he hugged Jack.

 

“I am man” He stopped for a second, “Have you… Have you seen Mark?” He asked almost timidly looking around. Felix’s face flashed to a couple different emotions before settling on a grim expression.

 

“No one told you, did they?” He asked in a matching grim voice. Jack was confused, Mark didn’t die, did he?

 

“No… What are you talking about?” Jack stumbled a bit in his nervousness.

 

“He’s- They evicted him” Felix stared at the ground angrily.

 

“They what?!” Jack yelled he looked at Felix with absolute terror.

 

“They thought- Mary felt… She felt the power that was making you sick come from Mark’s hands and they-” Jack almost fell at the dizzying confusion a fear coursing through his veins.

 

“He wouldn’t… Mark wouldn’t-”

 

“I know he wouldn’t Jack but they’ve got strict rules for stuff like this and Mary was absolutely certain and I guess it makes sense-” 

 

“How does it make sense? Mark wouldn’t do this!” Jack interrupted Felix’s rambling.

 

“I know, here we’re causing a scene, we should get to our room okay? I’ll explain more in their.” Felix managed to convince him and helped him through the halls, Jack fuming all the way.

 

As soon as they got through the door Jack started yelling again.

 

“Where’s he gonna go?” Jack’s concern flowing through his words.

 

“I mean, the dude’s eighteen he can probably find a place and a job, he was about to be promoted to being an agent anyways.” Felix soothed.

 

“That’s even worse, he was going to be an agent… He was almost there.” Jack’s anger melted into sadness. Felix seemed to notice this.

 

“Hey don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Last I heard Agent Toast was working to get him back.”

 

Jack nodded sniffling a tad. “That’s- that’s good”

 

“Alright, you want to fix this” Felix looked at him seriously.

 

“Uh… Yes?” Jack answered, of course he did but he was nervous about what he was planning.

 

“I can get you on the fast track to being a combat agent, you can go drag Mark’s ass back here and figure out what the fuck is going on, but, you need to do one thing.” Felix leaned back with looked like a bit of a smirk.

“...What?” Jack asked, afraid of the answer.

 

“You tell Mark about your feelings.”

 

“Fuck… Fine, I just want to make sure he’s okay” Jack glared at Felix who was smiling giddily now.

 

“Alright, I’ll get you to Seananners and he’ll work this out, you’ll be a bona fide agent in no time.”

  
“If you say so” Jack was probably going to regret this decision.


	15. Eye on the Prize

“Seananners” was an agent, Jack found out. They used him for special cases, ones where they needed the person to gain control of their powers fast. 

 

“Look I’m pretty busy right now Felix, I’ve got this case with an earthquake kid who’s running all over the country.”

 

“I know but dude, please, you know how important it is to me” Felix pleaded, “For a bro”

 

The dude sighed, “Goddamnit” He muttered, “For a bro.” 

 

He turned to Jack and looked him up and down.

 

“Well, you probably won’t be much work anyways, you’ve been to at least a couple training sessions right?” He asked looking exasperated.

 

“Yes?” Jack answered, he was very nervous and the doubtful gaze of this man was not helping.

 

“Alright, I’ll have to pull a few strings but I’ll get this to work. I’ll put you in my career group, show up tomorrow at 6am sharp or don’t at all.” He turned to Felix, “As for you, you owe me big time”

 

“I know I know, I’ll keep you stocked with fortune cookies,” He grinned widely before dragging Jack off to dinner. 

* * *

“Why.. am I wearing leather?” Jack asked looking down at himself.

 

“Public humiliation” Agent Seananners replied in monotone. “Sit in the chair and relax, we’ve got work to do”

 

Jack sat back in the chair he was directed to which looked like a stylish dentist’s chair. He took a deep breath as he adjusted himself in it.

 

“Close your eyes and breath deep” Agent Seananners instructed,”You’re going to enter a dream state now”

 

Jack drifted off and when he opened his eyes he was in an empty white abyss.

 

“The fuck?” Jack looked around confused.

 

“This is the space your power takes up, we’re going to fix it up” Seananners looked around at the empty space. “Alright first order of business, create something useful for your career, you said you wanted to go into combat?”

 

“Yeah” Jack replied fiddling with his sleeves.

 

“Then make a weapon”

 

“Um okay” Jack awkwardly closed his eyes and concentrated, he scrunched his eyes up and thought hard.

 

“Hold out your arms as if you were holding it, feel the weight of it.

  
  


Jack raised his arms and imagined the tension in his muscles. He adjusted his stance and felt the weight on his back. When Jack opened his eyes he had a well crafted wooden recurve in his hands and a quiver of arrows on his back. He lowered the bow towards the ground and loosened his arms and stance.

 

“Oh shit you’re like hawkeye now, so like, green eye?”

 

“Haha very funny,” Jack said sarcastically, he rolled his eyes.

 

“Now,” Agent Seananners straightened up, “Make a place to put it, make a room”

 

Jack envisioned a small room with racks on the wall for the bow and the quiver, a few extra arrows to the side. Wood polishing equipment and a table to his left. He opened his eyes and saw it appear in front of him.

“Nice job, kid” He leaned on the wall. “This is how we’re going to train, usually, this sort of training takes years and then you’ll go into the service part for several years and blah blah blah, we should be able to get you there like fully fledged badass in like, eight years.”

 

“Eight years?!” Jack’s voice went up an octave or so. This shit was going to take forever.

 

“Yes, oh, magical time lord, it’s going to take time” He quipped, “It’ll go like a breeze, and maybe you’ll grow up to be a hot little thing yourself, and you can just charm Mark back”

 

“Fuck off” Jack growled.

 

“Nah, you need me”

 

Jack didn’t want to admit how right he was.

 

* * *

Jack felt dead, no wonder they only met up once a month. The amount of concentration that went into the sessions, it killed him. Every month he went into that room and they worked on it, Jack’s imaginary bow shooting things out of time.

 

He learned over the visits the bow like his eyes glowing green was just a physical representation of his powers, a way to channel it. Jack would be perfectly happy to have a real bow but he hasn’t gotten to that part yet. Apparently at some point, they’re actually taught combat and Jack is expected to work out. Which Jack fully planned on dragging his feet through.

 

Jack worked hard to balance hanging with his friends and the extra amounts of training he was getting. He didn’t want to lose them, he needed them and he knew it. This is why he was laying on Felix’s bed while his nails were painted by Felix.

 

“Green’s totally your color dude, you’ve gotta embrace it”

 

“Everyone keeps calling me like Green Eyes and shit, is that going to be my agent name? Cause that sounds dumb as fuck”

 

“Nah do like, Green Iris or like… Sewage eye sounds bad…”

 

“Septic?” Jack offered.

 

“Perfect!” Felix exclaimed, “Jack Septiceye or I guess Agent Septiceye”

 

“Nice, I’ll sound badass”

 

“Or like you have some sort of eye problem…” Felix snickered.

 

“Well, what’s your plan?”

 

“Agent Pewdiepie,” Felix said proudly, preening a little bit.

 

“That’s so much better than Septiceye” Jack rolled his eyes.


	16. Hiding in the Air

“Alright my children, today, is reckoning day” Seananners announced ominously to the ragtag group that was standing around.

Jack looked at the two people next to him and honestly they looked cooler than him. There was only three of them and Jack was the shortest of the three of them it seemed.

He wasn’t sure, one of them was invisible, but they had a mask that was floating higher up than Jack’s head so he assumed that meant they were taller.The other guy was about Jack’s age and was looking around at everything in confusion. Jack decided he liked this man immediately due to his chill nature.

“Say hi to each other, maybe talk, I’m going to go get shit set up” He walked out a door nearby leaving the three alone in the small room.

“Hi…?” Jack greeted the two other dudes.

“Hello, I’m Cry” A voice spoke, Jack assumed it was the invisible person.

“I’m Jack,” He waved towards the mask. 

“I’m Mathias” The chill guy greeted. 

“Why is there only three of us?” Jack asked, confused. “They said there’d be like four to five?”

“Agent Seananners works with a smaller group due to the more in-depth training.”

“Weird…” Jack muttered. It wasn’t actually weird, it made sense, however, Jack’s nerves were working against his brain so everything sounded foreign right now. Mathias seemed to note this and smiled a little.

“Alright my little proteges, we’re going to play a little game of hide and seek, so if you could please enter the room that’d be great.” 

Mathias and Cry started to door and Jack froze for a second.

“We’re going to have to find Cry…?” Jack asked confused.

“Well, you have powers, use them.” Agent Seananners said flippantly. He strolled off through another door leaving the three teens to go into a larger room. Unlike the laser tag arena is was well lit and was made to look like a large house, complete with a front yard and a garden.

“We’re going to use activities like these to hone your powers, you’re going to want to learn defensive strategies well in order to not get killed when we actually learn combat. To make things easier for the whiny boys over there why don’t you seek first.” He spoke from a speaker that echoed his grainy voice through the air. After he stopped talking there was a click and a countdown on the wall started. The speaker clicked again.

“Go hide..” 

Jack and Mathias gave one last glance at each other before they darted off in different directions. Jack huffed a bit as he jogged, he really should get in shape, maybe use the jogging track sometime.

He slid through the front door and looked around, it looked fairly nice but he didn’t really have time to really take it in as he ran. He darted around before finding a back room, unsure of how to use his powers to help him hide. He settled behind a couple boxes just as the countdown ended.

He almost shook with anticipation, currently, the only plan he had was freezing Cry when he came in and darting away. He crouched lower when he heard light footsteps pass by.

“Where are you…” A voice muttered, going further into the house. Jack assumed this was Cry making his way through the rooms.

“Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I can’t see you” The voice taunted, seeming to come back closer to Jack. 

“Fuck…” He growled backing to the farthest corner from the door, he wasn’t sure how to get out of this one. He turned around to see a window open behind him.

“Fuck yes” He cheered quietly. He dragged his ass through the window. He landed with a thud in the grass and scrambled to slide away from the window, keeping his eyes and ears peeled. The fake grass brushed his legs harshly as he stumbled towards what looked like a back porch.

“Gotcha” The voiced exclaimed in his ear.

“HOLY FUCK” Jack jumped and whipped around, causing himself to hit the ground.

“Suck it nerds.” He laughed, Jack could see Mathias sulking to the side. 

“Asshole can’t calmly find people…”  
“Poor dears, we’re going to cut it here, next time Mathias will be seeking. For now, keep up the work and make friends” Agent Seananners voice rang out above them.

“I guess that’s it…” Mathias noted. The door back out to the small room opened and the three of them shrugged to one another and headed out back into the room and then back out to halls.

“See you guys next week?” Jack asked in a polite tone.

“Hell yeah,” Cry cackled. Mathias just shook his head before giving Jack a small smile.

“I guess”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for this taking so long, my sister is getting married on Saturday so it's a tad hectic right now.


	17. Weaponized Anger

After about four months of similar games to the first one, Jack was slowly growing tired of it. It felt like he was being treated like a child, he wanted to learn real combat for god’s sake, not play weird games, as fun as they were. He growled to himself as he marched back to the training room. He was fucking done and he was going to tell fucking Seananners where he could take himself, no matter what his goddamn status was.

 

He burst into the room immediately finding Seananners and storming over to him, he could almost  _ feel  _ his eye glowing with his rage that had built up over that last several weeks. All he wanted to do was find Mark and make sure he was okay, not that Mark needed his help, but Jack was worried. This worry fed into his anger that was just this ball of chaos that was jittering in his heart.

 

“Seananners!”

 

“Yes Jack?” His face was a mask of cold calmness that worried Jack a bit but he was here  now and he had already stormed into the room. In his peripheral vision he could see Cry and Mathias creeping up to watch their friend who was fuming.

 

“When the  _ fuck  _ are we actually going to train?! We’ve been playing these games for fucking months and Mark might be dead by now!” He yelled. 

 

“Even if he is, what do you care?” The agent mused. 

 

“He’s my friend!” Jack shrieked taking a step forward.

 

“You sure you’re not just trying to move up faster? Maybe you’re even out for vengeance, he did make you sick after all…” The look that was spreading on his face was pissing Jack off. It looked smug, as if he was talking about winning a bet and not about Mark.

 

“No he didn’t! I don’t… I don’t know what happened but he wouldn’t…” Jack shook his head and lost some of his momentum. He shifted his feet but looked back up at Seananners with a glare. “It doesn’t fuckin’ matter if he did it or not, you’re supposed to be training us.”

 

Seananners gave him a wide smile. “Of course, that’s why we’ll be starting combat training today. The lesson you should take home today kiddos is, be prepared to control your powers even if you’re pissed and ready to fight.”

 

Jack growled under his breath but followed the agent anyways as he led the group into a side room filled with drawers and cabinets labelled with various weapon names. There was a work bench with terrifying looking power tools and some more high tech machines nearby.

 

“Alright so the first step here is to create the weapon you had in the mental part of this course in the real world. You need to learn how to transfer the use of powers in your mind to the physical world, we have all the tech you may need here, you can figure out how it works yourselves, try not to cut off your hands or something.” He waved them in and strolled out.

 

“What the fuck..?” Cry wondered, if Jack could see his face he’s sure his eyebrow would be raised. “So all that, was just to piss one of us off,  _ eventually _ ?”

 

“Weird method of training…” Matthias shrugged. “He’s known for doing oddball things.”

 

Jack also shrugged as he looked around until he found the small cabinet with a couple different types of bows. He found a sturdy recurve and pulled it out. 

 

“Anyone know how to use power tools?” He asked looking at it with confusion.

 

“Not at all” Cry replied cheerfully picking up a thin sword.

 

* * *

After several weeks of all of them pouring their souls into their weapons and accidentally breaking them several times, they had all finally done it. Well, Cry had finished awhile ago but Matthias and Jack took a lot of time. However, they were finally done and Jack was pumped. They were all standing around holding the weapons they had toiled over for months.

  
“Alright, now, now you will learn to actually fight with them. In this case Jack is fucked because close range archery doesn’t work out most of the time. Might have to get you, like, a dagger or something later… Anyways I’ll bring in some specialists to teach you how to actually fight. You’re on your way to Agent-hood” Agent Seananners smiled proudly.


	18. Chilling Results

“Matthias…” Cry’s voice crackled over the com. “Could you please do your job faster, I’m dying over here.”

 

“I’m trying!” An indignant Matthias calls back. “But  _ somebody _ forgot to get rid of the guard!”

 

Jack chuckled as he perched on top of the roof, “Sorry Matthias, where are you?”

 

“Here” He heard Matthias sighed and between two buildings it started snowing.

 

“That’s low-key” Jack cackled, he darted his way over and looked out over the edge. Sure enough, Matthias was hiding behind a trashcan and a guard was taking a smoke break near the back door.

 

Jack notched an arrow and took aim. He wasn’t going to kill him of course, the arrows just allowed him to channel his powers in a more targeted manner the arrow hit the guy in the chest and he froze.

 

“Better?” Jack asked sarcastically. 

 

“Perfect” Matthias slid in the door and disappeared from Jack’s view. Jack crouched and hopped across the buildings to get to his next mark. This was a simple raid due to reports of suspicious activities that were concerning, but not enough to justify sending out bonafide agents. They were close, but they were still basically children. All they had to do was run in and if they saw anything scary, they had to call in for real agents. Jack waited quietly for his cue, Matthias would go in, check it out with Cry, and if it was fine Jack would slide down the wall and they’d all skip off into the sunset. If it turned out badly Jack would freeze the building and call for backup while holding it as long as he could.

 

He waited in the silence, slowly growing more concerned and bored. He considered calling over the mic for them, worried his teammates were dying. Until he heard Cry’s concerned voice.

 

“Jack, you should come see this” 

 

Jack panicked, somehow, his head jumped straight to horrific images of Mark dead or dying. It was illogical but the same images had been haunting him for months. He shakily slid down the wall using his powers to slow himself to a halt, he entered the room expecting the worst.

 

He was confused when all he saw was Matthias standing next to a sleeping bag and a pair of pants hidden by some boxes.

 

“What’s going on?” Jack asked confused. 

 

“Why is there a camp in a warehouse with guards?” Matthias offered.

“I don’t know, maybe like, a homeless person snuck in?” Jack theorized. It didn’t seem like such a huge deal. 

 

“Dude it took three junior level trainees to get in here, and you think a homeless person could just slide in here?” Cry asked skeptically somewhere nearby.

 

“Well, what are you suggesting?” Jack fired back. Matthias gave him a sad look before he handed Jack a piece of paper that was ragged and looked like it had been abandoned before the writing on it was finished. The scrawl on it looked rushed and shaky.

 

_ Dear Jack, _

_ God, fucking I’m sorry. Fuck that makes me sound guilty doesn’t it? I guess I guess I am? I didn’t mean to hurt you. God, how could I? I want you to know that  _ _~~I lo~~   _ _ I would never think of hurting you and I promise I’ll… I’ll never hurt you agai _

 

The ink trailed off the page.

 

“Mark…” Jack almost whispered. Matthias was still looking at him like he was waiting to see if he was going to need a hug. “Why would he be here, though?” 

 

“I’ve got a theory” Cry’s voice got closer. “I think I heard Agent Toast worked this building a while back, he might’ve been hiding Mark here”

 

“How would you know this?” Matthias looked towards the voice suspiciously.

 

“People talk when they think they’re alone man” He replied ominously.

 

“So he’s safe,” Jack let out, relieved.

 

“Well, I don’t know about that” Cry’s voice got darkly serious. “If he was all fine and dandy, I don’t think they’d send us here to go skipping around the place. Somethings up”

 

He had a point, but part of Jack still wanted to hope, maybe Agent Toast hacked the system and wanted Jack to find Mark again. That’d be nice.

 

“What are you doing here?” An annoyed familiar voice asked.

 

“Mark?!” Jack whipped around to see an unfamiliar face.

 

“What do you want, Jack” He ground out. Jack took a step back, this didn’t seem like his Mark.

 

“I- I was hoping you were okay?” He almost he squeaked out. Mark didn’t have to deadly of a power but something told him Mark could eviscerate him if he wanted to.

“Oh really?” A scary grin spread across his face, “Good Ol’ Jackaboy has come to save poor Mark? Funny since you were the one who got me kicked out!” His voice raised at the end to a yell send Jack quickly backing up towards the wall. Matthias was frozen still unsure of what to do, Jack assumed Cry was in the same state.

 

“I- I didn’t?” Jack stuttered out. Mark started slowly walked towards him with dramatic steps, taking his time.

 

“Really? Because if it wasn’t for you I’d be a fucking agent. If it wasn’t for you I’d have friends. If it wasn’t for you I’d have  _ friends _ ” The last word was ground out and Mark was in his face, almost snarling at him.

 

“I’m sorry?” Jack whispered, a tear escaping as his heart just about shattered in his chest.

  
“Sorry doesn’t help”


	19. A Slow Cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mild violence at the beginning

Jack was shoved back and he fell, hitting his head on the bare concrete floor. His vision swam as Mark loomed over him. 

 

“I never want to see you again”

 

Jack was terrified but was too scared to actually move. Mark’s eyes were cold and almost seemed empty. Before he could gather the shambles of his mind that were left, Mark took the remaining step towards him. With a dark glare, he pulled a fist back.

 

“I’m sorry” Jack whispered right before the fist hit him in the face. 

 

The force of it rattled it and somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind that weren’t throbbing with pain, told him he probably had a concussion. He rolled over and curled into a ball as Matthias blasted Mark back in a wave of ice, he could feel Cry trying to check him over. 

 

“Get the fuck back here!” Jack heard Matthias shout as Mark escaped.

 

“Jack? You alright? I mean, you just got hit in the face by your former best friend but… You’re not dead right?”

 

Jack’s eyes were squeezed shut, god, getting punched sucked. 

 

“Fuck… What the hell was that?” He gritted out, still laying there.

 

“That was weird..” Matthias said in a confused voice walking over to Jack and Cry. 

 

“Do… do we call for backup?” Jack asked as he sat up. 

 

“I’m not really sure” Cry answered looking around. “How about, we just go back to base tell Agent Toast Mark decked Jack and then go ask Felix for advice.”

 

“That… Alright, that works” Matthias shook his head. He didn’t seem happy that that was their only option really.

 

“Can we go back to base now? I’m pretty sure I have a concussion and my nose is bleeding everywhere.” Jack wheezed out from his spot on the floor. He wiped his face with his sleeve before stumbling to his feet. A force helped him up and Jack’s pretty sure it’s Cry as he’s led out back to the small car they arrived in.

 

Matthias took the wheel and pulled out of the small street they were parked in, heading back to the base. The drive was long and slow and Jack was slowly realizing what just happened, the shock had worn off.

 

“Fuck he… He hates me” His voice broke at the end. “He- he hates me”

 

He sniffled. He scrubbed his eyes. He put his head down. He was valiantly trying to not cry in front of his teammates, he wasn’t like that anymore, he was strong.

 

Jack broke. He sobbed while Cry rubbed his back. “There there, it’ll be okay.” 

 

“How?” He choked out. He looked up with tears streaming down his face. “I can’t fix this”

 

“You don’t need to, Jack,” Cry said sympathetically.

 

Jack stayed quiet for the rest of the ride as tears slid down his face. He couldn’t quite tell but he was pretty sure Cry was giving him worried glances.

 

“Hey, how about me and Matthias go to Agent Toast while you go to your room? Maybe get some rest?”

 

Jack just nodded, he was going to need a lot of sleep after this.


	20. Mousy Beginnings

Mark was eight when he scraped his knee on the pavement. He was running as fast as his little legs could carry him and had fallen. He whimpered as blood slowly oozed from the wound. He whipped his head up at the sound of movement.

 

“Where are you, you little brat!” A voice ripped through the air send cold fear through Mark’s spine. Mark ran down the road and ducked into an alleyway.  He slid to hide behind a dumpster and prayed. Maybe, maybe he could do it again. 

 

The thing that had started this chase, he had been playing with his family’s dog on his front porch when he suddenly was a dog. Which in his childlike mind was somehow not surprising at all and he was excited. However, his neighbor, who Mark knew was angry at some people, saw him shift and got angry. 

 

He tensed up and his eyes darkened with anger. “Not in my neighborhood you devil spawn!” Mark jolted back into being a human and hurried to go back in his house. The man had run back to his house and was now barreling towards Mark’s door.

 

“No no…” He panicked, he ran out the back door and just kept running. Around the house, down the street, onto many more streets. He needed to get away from the man and the gun.

 

That leads to being behind a trashcan cowering in fear. Maybe he could just… He felt himself shrinking and his body changing. His hand changed into small paws ready to scratch, fur covering most of his body, he was a tiny mouse. He slid under the dumpster and listened carefully.

 

“Damn brat…” Mark heard him mutter and walk away. He scuttled out from under the dumpster and back out onto the street. Why did he react like that? He knew his neighbor wasn’t particularly nice but not  ready to  _ shoot _ him. What does he do now?

 

“Hey, kid?” A voice called from above and Mark jerked his tiny mouse head up.There was a man staring down at him. He backed up as if to go back into hiding under the dumpster, he could very well be with the other man.

 

“No no- it’s okay I’m like you” He extended a hand down for Mark to climb into, which he did, tentatively. “Well, not quite like you but I have powers too”

 

Mark quirked his head still looking mildly scared but was relieved by the apparent sympathy.

 

“I can  _ see  _ the truth, it comes up in words that I read while you talk” He smiled, “Very handy when talking to the bad guys” 

 

Mark’s eyes got big and suddenly he was shifting back. The man dropped him quickly as he backed up a bit.

 

“Whoa there give me some warning there” He laughed.

 

“Sorry, I- I can’t really control it... But do you really fight bad guys?” Mark asked, his eyes shining in wonder.

 

“I don’t exactly fight them as I talk to them, I can fight a little, though.” He made comedic fighting poses making Mark giggle. “Say, what’s your name?”

 

“I’m Mark” He smiled and dramatically extended his hand, which the man took.

  
“Well I’m Ken, would you mind if I talked to your parents?” Mark shook his head and led him back to his house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want, totally put what your power would be in the comments!


	21. Gauging Reactions

Jack is twenty-six and he is an agent. He never saw Mark again and by this point he didn’t care, he doubted Mark even wanted to see him. He was successful, he had become the leading agent and transferred over to Irish division, and became reacquainted with his family. Things were going pretty well.

 

He didn’t grow up to be tall and powerful, well he was powerful but still short. He had heard he had grown into a handsome man but he was too busy _kicking ass_ to notice. Alright he was lying to himself, it’s fucking Ireland, he mostly does desk work.

 

Though he does miss the guys in America, he still talks to them occasionally, various skype calls through the weeks.

 

It was a Monday when his supervisor told him he had a call. He normally just got calls and answered them, getting a warning beforehand was a bit nerve wracking. He paused before picking up the phone and then hesitantly picked it up.

 

“Ireland’s Ability Defense and Control Agency, Agent Septic speaking.” He greeted stiffly. He hoped no one would notice his hands were shaking.

 

“My kid’s all grown up! I’m so proud”

 

“...Seananners?” Jack’s shoulders relaxed and he leaned back in his chair.

 

“Hell yeah! How’s it been going in the Emerald Isle?” He asked smoothly. Jack was still confused.

 

“Uh… Fine? I’ve-”

 

“Well, that’s fucking great because America’s been shit. We’re absolutely fucked alright. No one wants to say it but we’re fucked.” Seananners interrupted gruffly.

 

“Alright? Why are you calling?” Jack asked, his brow furrowed.

 

“Because it’s fucking Mark and god knows no one else here will deal with him, figured you could pull some Disney nonsense and get him to stop attacking us.” He growled out. He sounded pretty pissed. “Look, Mark came back and then he started attacking people and ran off. I voted for him to just get obliterated but they all love him _so_ much so now we have a sort of mega threat here and we’re all going to die because fucking _Ken_ won’t suck it up.”

 

“...Mark” Jack said quietly to himself.

 

“Yes dickbag, Mark. You’d go with these kids we got all ready to go, Matt and Ryan. Matt’s a pretty gifted healer and can blow people’s hearts up, some sort of bodily control? And Ryan’s got  like some sort of like, electricity thing? We figure he can zap Mark so... “

 

Jack’s still very confused, why were they overly worried about Mark? Don’t get him wrong Mark has really cool powers but not the kind that would wreak havoc across the country. If they had a dude who could control blood, how could they not just take him down?

 

“Why do you need my help?” Jack asked.

 

“You mean why can’t we get him on our own?” Seananners replied gruffly. “Well, the boy’s grown up since you’ve seen him”

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“Somehow, I mean there’s like a natural progression of powers, y’know, but like he was pretty much at the end of his training and finding more so late is very uncommon… But uh, somehow he’s gotten more powerful like, being able to turn mass amounts of people into things? We have an army of squirrels right now”

 

“...Squirrels?” Jack repeated.

 

“Yes genius, squirrels.” Seananners sighed. “It’s fucking pathetic alright, could you please just, come back?”

 

He sounded so resigned, Jack was definitely their last resort. For god’s sake, he’s been on basically desk duty for the last several years, it’s not like he was going to be much better. Although it’s true he’s developed his powers with awesome accuracy and power, he’s probably not going to be very useful.

 

“Fine just give me a couple days to pack up and head over.”

 

“Yeah yeah, hurry up” Seananners grumbled.

 

“See you in a bit,”

 

“Thanks, Jack,” He said in a tired voice before the tone signaled he had hung up.

“God want the fuck is happening over there?” Jack said to himself slumping in his chair and turning to his computer to buy plane tickets.

 

* * *

 

“Jack!” Jack whipped around to the source of the voice right as he was tackled to the ground. He had just gotten to the “Center for Abilities and Gifts” as they renamed it.

 

“Felix..” He wheezed out. “You’re crushing me…”

 

“Sorry sorry” The other guy scrambled up and hugged Jack. He laughed at patted Felix’s back. “Never let go, Jack, never let go.”

 

Jack chuckled before pulling back. “I missed you too, _Agent Pewdiepie_ ”

 

“Ah yes, _Agent Septic_ ” Felix replied with a grin, giving an awkward but still frilly looking bow. Jack would’ve never heard the end of it if he hadn’t kept in touch with Felix but it’s not quite the same as seeing each other in person.

 

Felix had grown a beard, he was still towering over Jack, and he was still as cheerful as ever.

 

“God bro, you’ve grown into those cheeks” Felix joked ruffling Jack’s hair. “Need to do something about the hair, though… You think I could get you a sweet outfit? I bet I could, I think I could get Marzia to wish it into existence…”

 

“She… wishes?” Jack asked raising an eyebrow.

 

“Yep, pretty sweet, it’s fucking adorable” Felix laughed. He led Jack through the still familiar halls.

 

“So as you know, Mark’s in trouble,” Felix started calmly, “I assume that’s what you’re here for. They didn’t really tell me _why_ you were here. Well, I can see it now, literally, so I guess you’re here for that. Good luck by the way”

 

The wish for luck was thrown casually over his shoulder and Jack felt oddly relieved by how calm Felix was. Then again he’s heard some odd stories about Felix recently so he didn’t let himself be lulled into a false sense of security based solely on his friend’s behavior.

 

“I’m supposed to take you directly to your little team group, which for some reason, they’ve decided you don’t need to train. It’s not like that’s necessary for team dynamics.” Felix muttered sarcastically. “You’re gonna get fucked up”

 

“Thanks, Felix I really appreciate your faith in us” Jack laughed.

 

“See this is why you need cool clothes, we’ll get you cool clothes that’ll make it so you don’t die when Mark crushes you, or maybe something that makes you not turn into rodents…” Felix mused.

 

Jack smiled and shook his head, honestly he felt calm about this. This was his first actual combat mission in ages. He’s totally got this in the bag.

 

* * *

 

“Alright, kiddies this is Agent Septic, Agent Shitbag this is Matt and Ryan” Jack had to huff a laugh at Felix’s introductions but he shook the pair’s hands seriously nonetheless, he had to give off the cool agent impression right?

 

“So I heard we’ll be heading out tomorrow?” Jack asked.

 

“Yeah, they want us to reach him before he gets too far west, he’s been moving pretty fast.” The one introduced as Matt answered.

 

“Where’s he going?” Jack’s eyebrows furrowed, it hadn’t sounded like he had any particular mission.

 

“We’re not sure?” Ryan looked as confused as Jack felt.

 

Jack shook his head and gave a small strained smile to them, “Wherever he is I don’t think he’s going to like seeing me. Anyways, see you at the crack of dawn”

 

Jack waved awkwardly and walked away with Felix.

 

“You really haven’t gotten a hang of talking like an agent have you?” Felix joked.

 

“I haven’t even gotten a hang of talking like a functional human, fuck being an agent” Jack rubbed his temples as they made their way down a semi-recognizable hallway.

 

* * *

 

“Felix, I don’t need a makeover,” Jack said as they stood in the clothing warehouse once again.

 

“Yes you do now sit your ass down” He shoved Jack towards a chair like what they have in the salon, “You’re gonna woo your man”

 

Cr1tikal popped into existence next to Jack giving him a heart attack.

 

“I’ve got the shit” Felix grinned while Jack clutched his heart still shocked from the man just appearing in front of him.

 

“...Wait a second is that… Hair dye?”

 

* * *

 

 

Jack stood there while Felix rolled up a mirror that was flipped over so all that could be seen is the back of the mirror.

 

“Ready for the reveal?” He said excitedly, they spent at least three hours carting Jack around, doing his hair, dragging random people in who could alter appearances (no one ever did explain why they couldn’t just change his hair like that), getting Marzia to wish him gear.

 

“No” Jack replied fiddling with a strap on his leg.

 

“Too bad” Felix laughed. He flipped over the mirror and Jack about died.

 

“Holy shit I look badass” Jack wheezed out. His hair was green, they’d given him gauges for no apparent reason, his new getup was black with green trim on everything with straps and zippers placed everywhere for dramatic effect Jack guessed and a hood that Jack thought made him look cool as fuck.

 

“No to woo your man!” Felix cheered.

 

“Felix, I was given orders to detain him with any means necessary, not fuck him.”

  
“Close enough” Felix snorted.


	22. Just Fuck Me the Fuck Up

“Did you get a makeover?” Matt asked, staring at him in amazement as he sat in the front seat while Jack drove.

 

“Fuck off” Jack growled hunching down more as the GPS gave instructions. 

 

“Why do you get to drive anyways?” Ryan looked at him concerned from the back seat. “You’re from Ireland right? Are you even certified to drive here?”

 

“Any more questions and you’re both fuckin’ walking” Jack muttered still glaring ahead.

* * *

 

From the coordinates they gave Jack, the place they thought Mark was camping out was a cafe, reminding Jack of when they had first really talked. It was warm and happy and Jack couldn’t forget the smiles Mark gave him. God, he wished he knew what Mark looked like.

 

He shook off the thoughts of Mark’s possible faces before parking the van and turning to Matt and Ryan.

 

“Alright, I’m going to go in first alright, the key word for you guys to come in as backup in case things go south is… Kestrel, the word is 'kestrel'.”

 

They nodded seriously and watched as Jack got out. As he strode towards the door with his hands started to shake. How would he even know who Mark was?

 

He opened the door and walked into the line for coffee. He tried not to look too nervous as he fiddled and then realized. God fucking- he was wearing a goddamn combat suit with bright ass green hair. There was no fucking way he was blending in. He sighed and cursed himself.

 

“You already know don’t you,” Jack said out loud to the cafe going  on a hunch.

 

“Of course,” The old man in front of him turned around and gave him a wicked grin. “You look good Jack, shame I’m going to have to kill you”

 

Jack grimaced, “I mean, you could just, not kill me. That’d be fine.”

 

As Mark turned to him, Jack froze the diner and stared into the taller man’s eyes. Mark stepped closer to him and looked down at him, his brown eyes were hypnotic. Jack didn’t even know if they were actually Mark’s but they were beautiful and Jack loved them.

 

“I don’t think that’s an option” Mark’s hands slid up to his waist and settled there, the warmth went right to Jack’s bones. He melted a little, he really should’ve thought through what he was going to say to Mark.

 

“It could be,” Jack said dumbly.He didn’t even know where to put his hands would it be bad to grab Mark? It probably would right?

 

“Well, you were sent here probably to  _ neutralize _ me, and you probably have friends outside waiting to take me out as we speak.” Mark leaned closer so he was all but whispering into his face. “And as hot as you look in that pretty little number I have things to do”

 

Jack was speechless as Mark leaned forwards more, that tiny distance so he could feel Mark’s breath on his lips.

 

“And you’re not on that list.”

Jack shrieked in pain as what felt like fire shot up his legs. He quickly froze time around the area of pain as laid on the floor. When he looked down his feet were gone.

 

“The hell?!” He shrieked. He looked up at Mark who hate a terrifying grin.

 

“Recently learned a new skill, you like it?” Mark shoved a frozen patron out of their chair to sit down at a table. “I can make things disappear”

 

“Like a fabulous magician, I’m sure,” Jack growled from his spot on the floor. “However, I have things to do to”

 

He only managed it a couple of times but he figured now was worth a try. He focused deeply and breathed as evenly as he could. Slowly, his feet reappeared. The pain came back as they reformed but disappeared as soon as they were complete.

 

Mark looked devilishly impressed and clapped a bit, “Nice trick there”

 

“Thanks” Jack scowled.

 

“You know I was angry at you” Mark mused, “I’ve decided you’re not really worth my time”

 

“But your little chipmunk army is” Jack shot back.

 

“No no, squirrels, Jack, squirrels” 

 

Jack was standing on the other side of the cafe looking out the windows at the rest of the streets he had frozen. He pulled the bow off his back and notched an arrow quietly.

 

“Oo are you gonna shoot me? You think I’m just going to let you shoot me?” Mark laughed.

 

Jack didn’t answer as he aimed straight at Mark, hands shaking as Mark walked towards him. 

 

“Didn’t think so” Mark muttered before he got up in Jack’s face again. Jack felt woozy like he hadn’t felt in years. It had settled in his gut and was traveling up to his temples as a deathly headache.

 

“Kestrel,” Jack said looking straight into Mark’s eyes.

 

“What?” Merk’s eyebrows scrunched up in confusion and he took a step back.

 

“Kestrel” Jack repeated plainly. He was going light-headed and he really couldn’t feel his legs anymore. The last thing he saw before he fell over unconscious was Mark’s face going from confident and angry to scared and confused.

 

* * *

 

“Babe cmon we’ve gotta get ready” 

 

Jack rolled over and opened his eyes. A man who he was sure was Mark was standing next to the bed in a bathrobe. He smiled up at him and rolled onto his back as Mark crawled on top of him. He leaned down and put a light kiss on Jack’s forehead.

 

“You’re not convincing me to get up” Jack laughed wrapping his hands around Mark’s neck.

 

“Hm…” Mark seemed to think for a bit. “Maybe it can wait a bit”

 

“Oh, so now it can wait” Jack laughed as he shoved Mark so he was sitting up.

 

“Fuck Jack you gotta- you gotta get up-”

 

“What?” Jack’s brow furrowed as he looked around for the source of the voice. The room darkened.

 

“No! Jack scrambled to hold onto Mark. “I don’t wanna go” He whimpered.

 

“You have to” Mark murmured softly.

 

* * *

 

“Oh fuck off” Jack grumbled as he regained consciousness.

 

“Uh sorry?” It was Matt. “You like passed out? But uh, I think I know why… I’ll explain later but… Ryan’s got Mark in the van right now so, we’re going to head back to headquarters. Y’know I thought this would be harder” Matt babbled.

 

“Alright,” Jack grunted as he worked to stand up. He accepted the hand Matt offered and dragged himself off to the van. “You’re driving”

  
“Good idea” Matt smiled and walked ahead of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I made a tumblr! Well, a side one... But if you want to follow me, it's the same as my username here 


	23. Lingual Limbo and Lethargic Luau

Mark had been held in a coma for the day while Matt frantically tried to explain what he had figured out. So far it seemed to be a lot of hand motions and stuttering noises. At first, he tried to tell Jack but it seemed to be a lot of medical mumbo jumbo and to a person without any sort of biological powers it just didn’t make sense.

From what Jack was told as he passed out, Matt and Ryan ran in but Mark was only standing there. “You really broke him,” Ryan had remarked. He was quickly rendered useless by Matt’s powers and was dragged back to the van and that’s when he woke up. It seemed too easy.

 

“What if it’s some sort of plot?” Seananners muttered to Jack’s left. They were standing outside of Mark’s room in the medical ward. The door was left closed and sealed in case anything happened. Though at least part of this was because Agent Toast requested his privacy on Mark’s behalf.

 

It was hard to believe he could be so evil. It seemed weird to call him so, such a cartoony word, evil. Jack missed Mark, so much. A small part of him wanted Mark to wake up and just be, Mark again. He knew that wouldn’t happen, though.

 

“Are you crying?” He heard Seananners ask sympathetically. He wiped his face and shook his head.

 

“I’m fine. We should- We should go see what progress they’ve made.” Jack sniffled and walked back into the delves of the hallways with his former mentor following behind at a polite distance. Everyone was giving him pitying glances like he’d lost his spouse for god’s sake.

 

Mark was just a friend, he didn’t even get to find out if they’d get to be spouses, husbands. He’s not dead, though, he’s not. Well, maybe the old Mark died. More tears slid down his face as he frantically wiped them off, trying to maintain his composure.

 

He found the meeting room they had been camped out in for the day. Everyone paused to look at him before slowly going back to their conversations. Matt was in the thick of it talking to all the medical leaders.

 

Agent Toast motioned to whoever he was talking to and strode over.

 

“Jack, I think we have good news.” He said in a tone that wasn’t usually indicative of good news. Jack nodded, motioning him to continue. “Matt over there think it’s a virus, not him just becoming a dick.”

 

Jack raised an eyebrow, “A virus..? Like, he’s sick?”

 

Jack was confused, to say the least, he was the one getting sick not Mark. Also, unless he had rabies, there wasn’t any sort of sickness that made you an asshole.

 

“Apparently, we had a student here who specialized in making diseases and fucking up other bodily functions. Matt thinks he fucked up or pranked Mark and gave him a disease that messes with his neural functions. According to him, that explains the exponential growth of abilities, though.”

 

Jack was staring off into space, Mark didn’t hate him. It was just, he was just sick. 

 

“Will he get better?” He asked hope growing in his eyes.

 

“We’re flying in the student they think did it, and even if he didn’t he would be able to tell if that is the case, and fix it.” Agent Toast smiled at him and then ruffled his hair like Jack was his son.

 

Jack was now elated, after all this time, after all this fucking pain, he might get to see Mark again. He contained himself enough to walk out into the hall, as he did he ran into Bob. 

 

“Hey, Jack!” Bob smiled at him, clearly happy to see him. 

 

“Bob!” He almost cheered as he threw himself into a hug. “I haven’t seen you in  _ ages _ ”

 

“Well if  _ someone  _ hadn’t hopped off to Ireland….” Bob smiled in a way to let Jack now he was joking.

 

“You should’ve just moved to Ireland” Jack laughed. They settled down before Jack gave him the low down on Mark’s condition.

 

“Damn dude” Bob shook his head, “I heard about the whole thing on your junior mission awhile ago… You holding up okay?”

 

“Yeah I’m just glad Mark might get back to normal” Jack smiled. He smiled down at his feet.

 

“You gonna take him out on a date after this is over?” Bob laughed as the tips of Jack’s ears burned red.

 

“Shut up he’s not okay yet” Jack muttered.

 

* * *

 

Jack sat in a dinky chair he had dragged from the waiting room to outside Mark’s door. He was curled up as he had been for the past week, he was worried for Mark. He knew it was irrational but after so much time away he almost wanted to go curl up with Mark but of course, he wasn’t allowed in the room until whoever they said may have caused the virus to arrive. If Jack had heard right they had to fly the guy in from England.

 

It was four AM and no one was walking by but Jack couldn’t sleep. He had been given a very fluffy blanket from Marzia, for which he made sure to thank her for. Jack picked on the blanket for a little longer before he fell off his chair from a sudden scream from Mark.

 

“Fuck!” Jack yelped as he hit the floor, “Dennis!”

He called out to the male nurse who was on duty.

 

“Dennis he’s-!” The nurse in question dashed from another room and opened the door with his security clearance, Jack politely looked away as he was sure Mark probably was himself right now. Jack listened as Dennis worked to calm Mark down but it didn’t seem to be working. 

 

“Jack! I’m going to close the door and seal it, you go fetch Tom I’ve heard he’s here and goddamnit he needs to fix this”

 

“I- Who’s Tom?” Jack asked frantically, panicking a little bit.

 

“Just- Go ask the reception ladies okay” A note of hysteria coming from poor Dennis’ voice.

 

Jack hurried off down the halls, the emptiness of them making his heartbeat sound too loud. He was nervous and still carrying the goddamn blanket. He shuffled up to the reception desk that had switched to the night staff.

 

“How can we help you?” A lady he didn’t recognize asked.

 

“He- Dennis needs- Tom?” His voice was high pitched with fear and he was just trying to get the words out.

 

“Which Tom?” She asked all too calmly.

 

“I don’t- English?” Jack struggled. She seemed to understand and then nodded.

 

“He’s on his way to the medical ward now” She replied still calm.

 

“Er… Thanks” Jack was confused and honestly she was off-putting. He decided there were more important things at hand and hurried off back to the medical ward with his blanket. As he padded along he tried not to worry too much. He approached the ward and entered the halls only to find the door open and a blonde guy was standing over Mark’s bed with Dennis standing to the side.

 

“Hello Jack” The blonde haired guy replied as his hands hovered over the bed.

 

“Uh hi?” Jack replied from where he was now perched back in his chair.

 

“Just so you know this isn’t going to be… instantaneous or anything. You won’t pass out anymore but… He’s probably going to be a grumpy dick for a while. You can probably deal with that, don’t try making out with him or anything and you’ll be fine.”

 

“Alright…?” Tom spoke fast and smoothly and apparently he just fixed Mark in seconds. Power like that was terrifying. “So what exactly was wrong with him?”

“I’m going to force to explain all that tomorrow,” Tom replied flippantly as he exited the room and started down the hall, “Deal with all the medical nonsense tomorrow “

  
Jack nodded and watched as Dennis resealed the doors. He patted Jack sympathetically on the shoulder before returning to his nightly rounds. He guessed all this shit would explain tomorrow in the meeting he was sure would be held. So much shit had happened in such a short amount of time and he just wanted to have his friend back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going on vacation in like 12 days and I won't be able to post so I'm going to try to get this done before then. Thanks for reading! :D


	24. Jack(ing off)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE there is porn this chapter

“Alright, fuckers sit down. Welcome to science,” Tom said with a vast sweeping motion to the room of people that were sat down.

 

Jack was sat towards the back and smiled a tad and Tom. Matt was standing to Tom’s right, next to the large whiteboard they had dragged out. They had assembled a large group of agents, most of which Jack didn’t actually recognize, and had them all camped out in the cafeteria. Every just sort of grabbed chairs and put them in some sort of order.

 

“What you all just dealt with for, several years? God, you people move slowly. Anyways, that was the result of a shitty mistake made by child me. Go, child-me for fucking everything up.”

 

There were a few noises of affirmation that he fucked up.

 

“I make virus’s and from what we can tell one of them managed to infect your dear friend Mark. It was a virus basically to break up any sort of relationship. I can handpick symptoms for certain outcomes, in this case, it was aggression, and it basically made the person the infected had like, “feelings” for getting horribly ill whenever they were near them. It was just an assignment gone wrong. I can cure it, will be working with the healers and all that jazz, sorry for all this.”

 

The meeting was adjourned and Jack could only sit there in shock. Did… did Mark have feelings for him? He got sick just recently, though, it doesn’t make sense, Mark definitely doesn’t have feelings for him now.

 

“I really am sorry” Jack looked up to Tom standing in front of him with a sympathetic smile. “Didn’t mean to break up you and your boyfriend.”

 

“We’re not- We were never-” Jack stuttered out, a blush bloomed across his face.

 

“Oh fuck that’s worse, you love him though right?” Tom asked he pulled a chair out to sit in front of Jack, putting his elbows on his knees.

 

“I do,” Jack said quietly. He fucking did, he just hoped Mark will love him back someday.

 

“It’ll be fine,” Tom assured him, “The virus shouldn’t have any lasting effects, I mean he might be very sad seeing as he turned all those people into rodents but like, he didn’t actually kill anyone from what I heard.”

 

“I heard a lot of people were scrambling, though, he almost killed me  too,” Jack noted.

 

“Well, maybe you can tell that as a cute wedding story in the future.” Tom offered, he got up and waved as he walked off. “Good luck with that man, Jack”

 

“I’m gonna fucking need it” Jack muttered to himself.

 

He pushed himself out of the chair just as a guy came in using his powers to put the chairs back in order. Jack left him to clean up and walked back to his post outside of Mark’s door.

 

As he sat down in his dinky chair he took in the now familiar surroundings, every once and awhile a healer would exit or enter Mark’s door muttering or babbling with someone else in medical jargon that gave Jack a headache.

 

Jack had no idea how long he spent staring off into space before Tom tapped him on the shoulder.

 

“Jack, he’s awake,” He said softly. “He asked to see you”

 

Jack’s brain almost fizzled out at those words. He felt detached from his body as he stood up. Tom opened the door for him and Jack entered the room, Jack had no idea if this was Mark’s face or if he had already changed it.

 

“Hi Jack” He greeted with a rough voice.

 

“Hi Mark” Jack replied quietly pulling up a chair to Mark’s bedside. He smiled warmly and Mark and Mark did his best to return it. He seemed pretty tired.

 

“I’m- I’m sorry I tried to-” 

 

“No no you didn’t mean to” Jack interrupted hurriedly, “I know it wasn’t really you”

 

In his peripheral, Jack noticed Tom had left and closed the door behind him. Jack slowly slid his hand on the bed and grasped Mark’s hand. Mark smiled at him and Jack smiled back, squeezing his hand softly.

 

“They want me to do some sort of rehab with my powers,” Mark said, breaking the silence. “And probably therapy”

 

“I mean you’ve got some cool abilities now so at least you got something out of it” Jack tried to reassure him. Mark smiled at him but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ll be fine Mark”

 

“I hope so”

 

* * *

 

Jack didn’t know what to do. He was so worried before about not getting a chance with Mark and now he had that chance and he wasn’t even using it. It never felt like the right time to talk to him, he was always doing things or was busy with friends, Jack didn’t want to just interrupt his life or something. 

 

He and Mark had got hired onto the staff to help where they could. They officially worked as instructor’s assistants but the instructors (mentors) rarely needed help so they were both basically runners for whoever needed them at that particular time. Jack’s job in Ireland was on hold currently because they admitted nothing really happened there and they wished him luck on trying to get with Mark.

 

He did admit it was a bit cowardly, to just tiptoe around Mark and not actually ask him but Jack was a romantic, he really wanted to go the whole nine yards and get a box of chocolates and flowers and ask him out to some lovely dinner while they chatted happily. He didn’t know if Mark would go for it but he was already putting plans together and it was going to be perfect, he just needed to ask him soon.

 

* * *

 

Mark still hadn’t shown Jack his face, and Jack was okay with that, however, Mark looked really hot right now and Jack was dying inside. 

 

It wasn’t even how he looked, it was the way he was laying on the bed with his legs spread and his head tilted back as he breathed deeply.

 

They had just gotten back to Mark’s temporary room as they had just returned from a round of dodgeball, and Mark started to trip but had only gotten his shorts off before he just collapsed onto the bed and melted. On the bright side, he hadn’t literally melted.

 

“It so hoooot” Mark complained in that dumb high pitched voice he uses to disguise his own.

 

“I’m well aware” Jack whined from where he was on the floor. Jack crawled over to the side of the bed and peered over the edge. Mark had his eyes half closed and seemed to be staring at nothing. “I am also hot”

 

Jack snickered before sliding up and flopping on top of Mark who shrieked indignantly.

 

“Get off!” He whined as Jack clung to him like an octopus. 

 

“Never!” Jack cried, laughing hysterically as Mark did his best to peel the sweat slicked Irishman off of him. Mark did some advanced maneuvering and slid out from his grip, flipped him, and pinned him to the bed.

 

“Ha!” He laughed victoriously before looking down at Jack. Jack could feel his face flush as he  up at Mark dazedly. Mark seemed to realize the position they were in, he went to move but as he did his knee grazed Jack’s crotch causing his breath to hitch. 

 

Jack’s head fell back onto the bed at the look Mark gave him, it was full of confusion and almost fear. His eyes scrunched shut as he wished he could be anywhere else.

 

He felt the mattress shift but then there was hot breath on his neck near his ear.

 

“Can I kiss you?” Mark asked in a low voice. Jack opened his eyes studying Mark for any traces of just being humorous. His eyes went from an odd hazel to being dark brown, his pupils dilated. Jack nodded frantically and pulled Mark into a deep kiss.

 

Mark sighed contentedly as Jack held onto his sides as if Mark was his life force. Jack’s head was filled with warm silence as he put all his being into kissing back. His hands slid to Mark’s back and then up and under Mark’s shirt to feel his warm skin. 

 

He could feel Mark’s hands slide into his hair to tug gently. He pulled away from Mark and gasped, he breathed heavily as Mark slid down to Jack’s hips and looked up. As Jack looked into his eyes he could only nod, he barely even breathed as Mark tugged his pants off taking his underwear with them.

 

Mark slid his own pants off before crawling back up the bed and perching himself back over Jack. 

 

“I’m going to fuck you, okay?” He was asking permission Jack guessed.

 

“Please,” He gasped out raggedly. Mark smiled at him before pulling back and leaning over to the bedside table.

 

“Where the fuck did you get supplies from?” Jack asked as he laughed. He sat up on his elbows as Mark settled back on the bed with a condom and lube.

 

“I might have asked the medical ward for it” He grinned before pushing lightly on Jack’s shoulder til he was on his back again. Jack laughed at him before pulling him into a kiss. Mark pulled back and poured some lube on his hands before shifting between Jack’s legs.

 

Jack fucking  _ whined _ at the feeling of Mark’s fingers in him, his legs fell open further and his hips pushed into the touch trying to feel  _ more _ . As Mark’s fingers moved in and out all he could do was whine and grasp at anything and everything. 

 

“Mark- Fuck… You gotta- you gotta fuck me” He stuttered out in between the thrusts of Mark’s fingers.

 

Mark made a noise as if he had to weigh his options in his head before the sound of the wrapper being opened rang out in the otherwise silent room. The lube bottle’s cap click and then Mark was back between Jack’s legs, this time, he settled close and pulled Jack’s hips up to his own. Slowly his cock slid into Jack making him groan. Jack’s head lulled around as the sensation rippled through his body.

 

As Mark began to thrust slowly, his skin seemed to ripple. Jack couldn’t focus, his eyes slid shut often and he was lost to the pleasure. Moans were ripped from both of their mouths as Mark picked up speed. The sound of skin on skin echoed through the room harmonizing with the various grunts and gasps. 

 

Mark held onto Jack’s hips tightly as he thrust but his rhythm was getting sloppy, both of them were close. There was a twist in Jack’s gut slowly curling itself to rest low on his stomach. It took only a few more thrusts before his back arched and he came with a shout. Aftershocks buzzed through his body as his ass clenched.

 

He slid his eyes open to look at Mark, who was still chasing his orgasm. His skin and face changed like a phone book flipping pages, every once and awhile it would stop and seemingly glitch before going back to rapid changes.

 

Then, right as Mark froze and shuddered, his face froze. It was the face of a moderately buff Korean man with his hair dyed red. He looked amazing.

 

Mark pulled out of Jack and tied the condom before throwing it towards  a nearby trashcan. He dragged himself up before collapsing halfway on Jack and spooning him. Was Mark just going to let him sleep here? As Jack tried shifting away to leave Mark’s arms wrapped tighter around him. It seems he was staying for the night. He sighed before smiling and giggling to himself before snuggling into Mark’s embrace and closing his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Jack woke up to feeling extremely warm and cozy. It was a pretty great feeling and he couldn’t figure out for the life of him what was causing it. Then he heard a light sigh behind him and the ghosting of lips on his neck. He shimmied a little only to feel trapped by a pair of arms and also legs tangled in his.

 

“Wha..?” He garbled out. Then he remembered where he was. “Mark?” 

 

The man behind him mumbled something but didn’t quite wake up. Jack carefully pried the octopus-like arms off of him and sat up to look at Mark. It was the same face from last night.

 

If Jack was honest, he was really surprised Mark was as attractive as he was, seeing as he worked so hard to hide his face. Before Jack could linger on those thoughts, the dark brown eyes opened blearily to meet blue.

 

“Jack?” Mark blinked up at him before taking in his surroundings. “We should… We should probably talk about this…”

  
“Yeah” Jack agreed pulling the blankets up further to cover himself. There goes all those plans for asking Mark out.


	25. Goddamn Fortune Telling Felix

Mark sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, Jack couldn’t stop staring at his face. This was nowhere near how he’d thought this would go, maybe like after years of Jack woo-ing him and mutual love and respect they’d have a talk or something. Not a one-night stand sort of deal where Mark didn’t even get a choice.

 

Jack felt guilty, there was no way Mark would want to date him now right? All that build up only for it to be crushed in the face of a pretty great orgasm. Jack wasn’t going to lie it was good sex, however, it was now probably going to be one night of good sex instead of a long lasting relationship.

 

“You… You weren’t supposed to see that.” Mark said quietly barely even meeting Jack’s eyes.

 

“I’m sorry,” Jack said right off the bat with an earnest expression, he was going to fix this. They were going to get through this at least as friends, he wasn’t losing Mark again, especially not to a one night stand goddamnit.

 

“No no,” Mark’s face seemed to soften, “I’m not really sure what to do now? I mean you’re, you’re a great guy…”

 

Jack could feel a ‘but’ coming in soon, he didn’t want to wait for it, he sighed. “I get it, you didn’t mean for any of it and it- it won’t happen again.”

 

Jack’s voice cracked at the end and he worked hard to hold in tears. Mark frowned and grasped Jack’s forearm.

 

“That’s not what I meant, Jack”

Something in the way he said Jack’s name, and his facial expression gave Jack a warm feeling of hope deep in his gut. 

 

“Look, obviously we have feelings for each other” Mark started while pushing his hand through his hair, “So do you want to…?”

 

“To date?” Jack finished for him. They looked at each other, and in the silence both of them shifted forwards.

 

Mark grasped Jack’s shoulder and they shared a chaste kiss before they both pulled back.

 

“Yeah no, I’m going to need a verbal confirmation,” Jack grinned smugly.

 

“Fine… Jack I would like to date you.” Mark replied in a faux-serious tone with his big brown eyes gazing at him with just a teeny bit of twinkle in them.

 

“Good” Jack replied. “Because I’d like to date you too” He grinned as he kissed Mark on the cheek.

 

* * *

 

Now that Jack had his opportunity, now was the time to woo Mark. He sort of already had but, now he needed to seal the deal, the whole big romantic bonanza was still to be had, no matter if he and Mark were technically boyfriends now.

 

Jack was running around holding a blanket, a form to rent out the fake park area, and a muffin he was trying to shove in his mouth as he ran. He didn’t really have to run, but at this point, he was hyper and needed to drain off some extra energy. He was going to set up an adorable fucking picnic for Mark, it was going to be awesome and perfect. 

 

As he made sure everything was in line for him to have the room and the food he noticed he hadn’t seen Mark since he got up in the morning. Jack had convinced Mark to let Jack move into Mark’s room with him. However the redhead was scarce, and even though Mark still hid his face around others Jack had gotten pretty good at recognizing Mark when he saw him.

 

Jack shrugged it off and went in to turn in the form for the room. When he walked in there was a line so he slid up to the desk and put the paper in the requests bin and walked off. People very rarely requested rooms so he was sure it’d be fine.

 

As he strode through the halls Jack considered his plan for getting Mark to the picnic without accidentally telling him in his excitement. 

 

* * *

 

Everything was set in place and Jack was wearing a well-loved pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt that Jack was fiddling with. He was sat in the room on the old blanket he had borrowed from someone, he couldn’t quite remember and he didn’t care to think too much on it. Soon, Mark would be here, he’d asked him to meet him here and Mark had happily agreed before running off with one of the older students saying something about an event later.

 

Now it was almost six and Jack had planned for five forty-five. He guessed maybe Mark had forgotten, but right as Jack pondered what he’d do if Mark didn’t show up he walked through the door. As he took in the sight before him his eyes widened.

 

Jack stood up and walked over to him.

 

“Holy fuck Jack, you- you put together a picnic?” Mark’s eyes were so bright Jack felt the butterflies in his stomach settle and he hugged Mark tightly.

 

“Date night?” He looked up at Mark with an unreadable expression crossing his face.

 

“Wait, here? Now?” Mark asked confused. Jack’s grin slipped and he drew his eyebrows together.

 

“Uh, yeah?” 

 

“I put in… We”

 

Right then, the kid Mark was talking to earlier burst in with about twenty other kids. “Let’s get this started!” 

 

The group cheered as Jack gaped.”But I requested this room?”

 

“So did we? Martha at the front desk said no one else had claimed it” Mark looked genuinely apologetic.

 

“Oh” Jack was a little heartbroken and it must’ve shown on his face because Mark pulled him aside. He called to the group and said he’d be right back as he turned to Jack.

 

“I’m sorry Jack, I didn’t know but, we can make up the date after? We can go up to the school building and sit on the roof” Mark looked at him earnestly.

 

“That- okay” Mark’s face lit up and he pulled Jack in for a kiss. “What are you guys doing anyways?” 

 

Mark gave him a sly grin, “We’re having a competition, one on one fights”

 

“Wouldn’t the training rooms be better for that?” Jack asked.

 

“It wouldn’t feel as wild and free” Mark joked. He grabbed Jack around the waist, gave him one last kiss, and then dragged him back into the room.

 

“Alright, you soon to be losers, who wants to go first.”

 

A bigger crowd had formed and one by one, grudges were settled and bets were made. Jack had become something of a referee and Mark was the MC. As the night began to settle down one of the kids ran up to Mark and whispered in his ear. Mark laughed in response and looked over at Jack before walking into the center of the makeshift ring.

 

“I, Mark Fischbach, challenge Sean McLoughlin” The kids whispered and oo-ed. Jack shook his head and smiled before stepping forwards dramatically. 

 

“I accept your challenge!”

 

Before he could get into a fighting stance a little girl tugged on his shirt. “Do you want a suit too?”

 

Jack looked up to see Mark had shifted into himself with a similar outfit to what Jack had when Felix had dressed him up. He smiled down at the girl, “Sure”

 

Before he could blink he was wearing the goddamn suit fit with all the aesthetic zippers and straps. The little girl handed him his bow before skipping off. He shook his head and stepped forward towards Mark.

 

“You ready?” Mark asked. Jack simply laughed at notched an arrow.

 

“You fucking bet”

 

The thing is people had started to doubt Jack, the all powerful Agent Septic, constantly bested by his weak spot. A weak spot named Mark. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, given that he had a date with said weak spot later, but it had started to bother Jack. The occasional jokes, the off-hand comments, etc. that maybe Jack just wasn’t cut out for being an agent. But now, he had a perfect opportunity to show off like the fucking boss he was.

 

Right as Mark leapt at him as a tiger Jack hit pause on the imaginary remote. Only Mark was stuck in the room and the kids were all watching with wide eyes. Jack grinned as he sidestepped and released the tiger.

 

“Too slow,” Jack remarked. Mark growled at him and shifted into a snowy owl that swept up towards the ceiling, he circled above calling threateningly.

 

Jack grinned and took off toward the circular wall, he jumped up and dug his foot into the wall as he localized his powers on his feet in a practiced movement before he was running up the wall. He dashed upwards, circling upwards until he was level with Mark.

 

“Thought I’d join you up here” Jack laughed. If owls could snort he was sure Mark did, right before he swooped at him with claws out.

 

Jack slowed down time just enough to grab the owl by the legs and freeze his outstretched claws. He settled the bird as he walked down the wall at a leisurely pace and stand in the center of the room holding the bird up victoriously.

 

That day they all learned an important message: _never mess with_ _Agent Septic_. Jack let go of Mark who shifted back to himself before faux pouting. Jack laughed before pulling him in for a kiss. Mark settled into it immediately and slid his arms around his waist.

 

“So date night?” Jack smiled at Mark before kissing him again.

  
“I don’t know that little sky dance was a work out” Mark huffed. Jack paused, sky dance, him in the fucking _sky_ , he guessed Mark was red. Goddamnit Felix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the END! FUCK YEAH. Sorry I'm excited I've never finished anything this long, thank you so much for reading!


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